NRLF 


B   M   b^fl   D17 


JOHN 

NORTHERN 

HILLIARD 


ALIFORNIA 
ANTA  CRUZ         J 
X 


PS 


/ 


^  , 


A    FEARFUL    RESPONSIBILITY. 


A    FEAEFUL    RESPONSIBILITY 


AND  OTHER   STORIES 


BY 


WILLIAM   D.   HOWELLS 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  LADY  OF  THE  AROOSTOOK,"  "THE  UNDISCOVERED 

COUNTRY,"   ETC. 


BOSTON 

JAMES    R.  OSGOOD   AND   COMPANY 
1881 


Copyright,  1881, 
BY  W.  D.  HOWELLS. 


Ah  rights  reserved. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
A  FEARFUL  EESPONSIBILITY    . 1 

AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  SAVAGE 165 

TONELLI'S  MARRIAGE  209 


A    FEARFUL    RESPONSIBILITY. 


I. 


EVERY  loyal  American  who  went  abroad  during 
the  first  years  of  our  great  war  felt  bound  to  make 
himself  some  excuse  for  turning  his  back  on  his 
country  in  the  hour  of  her  trouble.  But  when  Owen 
Elmore  sailed,  no  one  else  seemed  to  think  that  he 
needed  excuse.  All  his  friends  said  it  was  the  best 
thing  for  him  to  do ;  that  he  could  have  leisure  and 
quiet  over  there,  and  would  be  able  to  go  on  with 
his  work. 

At  the  risk  of  giving  a  farcical  effect  to  my  narra- 
tive, I  am  obliged  to  confess  that  the  work  of  which 
Elmore's  friends  spoke  was  a  projected  history  of 
Venice.  So  many  literary  Americans  have  projected 
such  a  work  that  it  may  now  fairly  be  regarded  as  a 
national  enterprise.  Elmore  was  too  obscure  to  have 
been  announced  in  the  usual  way  by  the  newspapers 
as  having  this  design ;  but  it  was  well  known  in  his 


4  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

town  that  he  was  collecting  materials  when  his  pro- 
fessorship in  the  small  inland  college  with  which  he 
was  connected  lapsed  through  the  enlistment  of  nearly 
all  the  students.  The  president  became  colonel  of  the 
college  regiment ;  and  in  parting  with  Elmore,  while 
their  boys  waited  on  the  campus  without,  he  had 
said,  "  Now,  Elmore,  you  must  go  on  with  your  his- 
tory of  Venice.  Go  to  Venice  and  collect  your  mate- 
rials on  the  spot.  We're  coming  through  this  all 
right.  Mr.  Seward  puts  it  at  sixty  days,  but  1 11  give 
them  six  months  to  lay  down  their  arms,  and  we  shall 
want  you  back  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Don't  you 
have  any  compunctions  about  going.  I  know  how 
you  feel ;  but  it  is  perfectly  right  for  you  to  keep  out 
of  it.  Good-by."  They  wrung  each  other's  hands  for 
the  last  time, —  the  president  fell  at  Fort  Donelson  ; 
but  now  Elmore  followed  him  to  the  door,  and  when 
he  appeared  there  one  of  the  boyish  captains  shouted, 
"  Three  cheers  for  Professor  Elmore  ! "  and  the  presi- 
dent called  for  the  tiger,  and  led  it,  whirling  his  cap 
round  his  head. 

Elmore  went  back  to  his  study,  sick  at  heart.  It 
grieved  and  vexed  him  that  even  these  had  not 
thought  that  he  should  go  to  the  war,  and  that  his 
inward  struggle  on  that  point  had  been  idle  so  far  as 
others  were  concerned.  He  had  been  quite  earnest 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  5 

in  the  matter;  he  had  once  almost  volunteered  as 
a  private  soldier:  he  had  consulted  his  doctor,  who 
sternly  discouraged  him.  He  would  have  been  truly 
glad  of  any  accident  that  forced  him  into  the  ranks ; 
but,  as  he  used  afterward  to  say,  it  was  not  his  idea 
of  soldiership  to  enlist  for  the  hospital.  At  the  dis- 
tance of  five  hundred  miles  from  the  scene  of  hostili- 
ties, it  was  absurd  to  enter  the  Home  Guard ;  and, 
after  all,  there  were,  even  at  first,  some  selfish  people 
who  went  into  the  army,  and  some  unselfish  people 
who  kept  out  of  it.  Elmore's  bronchitis  was  a  dis- 
order which  active  service  would  undoubtedly  have 
aggravated;  as  it  was,  he  made  a  last  effort  to  be 
of  use  to  our  Government  as  a  bearer  of  dispatches. 
Failing  such  an  appointment,  he  submitted  to  expa- 
triation as  he  best  could ;  and  in  Italy  he  fought  for 
our  cause  against  the  English,  whom  he  found  every- 
where all  but  in  arms  against  us. 

He  sailed,  in  fine,  with  a  very  fair  conscience.  "  I 
should  be  perfectly  at  ease/'  he  said  to  his  wife,  as 
the  steamer  dropped  smoothly  down  to  Sandy  Hook, 
"if  I  were  sure  that  I  was  not  glad  to  be  getting 
away." 

"  You  are  not  glad,"  she  answered. 

"  I  don 't  know,  I  don 't  know,"  he  said,  with  the 
weak  persistence  of  a  man  willing  that  his  wife  should 


6  A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

persuade  him  against  his  convictions ;  "  I  wish  that  I 
felt  certain  of  it." 

"  You  are  too  sick  to  go  to  the  war ;  nobody  ex- 
pected you  to  go." 

"  I  know  that,  and  I  can 't  say  that  I  like  it.  As 
for  being  too  sick,  perhaps  it's  the  part  of  a  man 
to  go  if  he  dies  on  the  way  to  the  field.  It  would 
encourage  the  others,"  he  added,  smiling  faintly. 

She  ignored  the  tint  from  Voltaire  in  replying : 
"  Nonsense !  It  would  do  no  good  at  all.  At  any 
rate,  it 's  too  late  now." 

"  Yes,  it 's  too  late  now." 

The  sea-sickness  which  shortly  followed  formed  a 
diversion  from  his  accusing  thoughts.  Each  day  of  the 
voyage  removed  them  further,  and  with  the  preoccu- 
pations of  his  first  days  in  Europe,  his  travel  to  Italy, 
and  his  preparations  for  a  long  sojourn  in  Venice, 
they  had  softened  to  a  pensive  sense  of  self-sacrifice, 
which  took  a  warmer  or  a  cooler  tinge  according  as 
the  news  from  home  was  good  or  bad. 


A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 


II. 


HE  lost  no  time  in  going  to  work  in  the  Marcian 
Library,  and  he  early  applied  to  the  Austrian  authori- 
ties for  leave  to  have  transcripts  made  in  the  archives. 
The  permission  was  negotiated  by  the  American  con- 
sul (then  a  young  painter  of  the  name  of  Ferris),  who 
reported  a  mechanical  facility  on  the  part  of  the  au- 
thorities, —  as  if,  he  said,  they  were  used  to  obliging 
American  historians  of  Venice.  The  foreign  tyranny 
which  cast  a  pathetic  glamour  over  the  romantic  city 
had  certainly  not  appeared  to  grudge  such  publicity 
as  Elmore  wished  to  give  her  heroic  memories,  though 
it  was  then  at  its  most  repressive  period,  and  formed 
a  check  upon  the  whole  life  of  the  place.  The  tears 
were  hardly  yet  dry  in  the  despairing  eyes  that  had 
seen  the  French  fleet  sail  away  from  the  Lido,  after 
Solferino,  without  firing  a  shot  in  behalf  of  Venice ; 
but  Lombardy,  the  Duchies,  the  Sicilies,  had  all 
passed  to  Sardinia,  and  the  Pope  alone  represented 


8  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

the  old  order  of  native  despotism  in  Italy.  At  Venice 
the  Germans  seemed  tranquilly  awaiting  the  change 
which  should  destroy  their  system  with  the  rest ;  and 
in  the  meantime  there  had  occurred  one  of  those 
impressive  pauses,  as  notable  in  the  lives  of  nations 
as  of  men,  when,  after  the  occurrence  of  great  events, 
the  forces  of  action  and  endurance  seem  to  be  gather- 
ing themselves  against  the  stress  of  the  future.  The 
quiet  was  almost  consciously  a  truce  and  not  a  peace  ; 
and  this  local  calm  had  drawn  into  it  certain  elements 
that  picturesquely  and  sentimentally  heightened  the 
charm  of  the  place.  It  was  a  refuge  for  many  exiled 
potentates  and  pretenders ;  the  gondolier  pointed  out 
on  the  Grand  Canal  the  palaces  of  the  Count  of  Cham- 
bord,  the  Duchess  of  Parma,  and  the  Infante  of  Spain ; 
and  one  met  these  fallen  princes  in  the  squares  and 
streets,  bowing  with  distinct  courtesy  to  any  that 
chose  to  salute  them.  Every  evening  the  Piazza  San 
Marco  was  filled  with  the  white  coats  of  the  Austrian 
officers,  promenading  to  the  exquisite  military  music 
which  has  ceased  there  forever;  the  patrol  clanked 
through  the  footways  at  all  hours  of  the  night,  and 
the  lagoon  heard  the  cry  of  the  sentinel  from  fort  to 
fort,  and  from  gunboat  to  gunboat.  Through  all  this 
the  demonstration  of  the  patriots  went  on,  silent, 
ceaseless,  implacable,  annulling  every  alien  effort  at 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.',  9 

gayety,  depopulating  the  theatres,  and  desolating  the 
ancient  holidays. 

There  was  something  very  fine  in  this,  as  a  spectacle, 
Elmore  said  to  his  young  wife,  and  he  had  to  admire 
the  austere  self-denial  of  a  people  who  would  not  suffer 
their  tyrants  to  see  them  happy;  but  they  secretly 
owned  to  each  other  that  it  was  fatiguing.  Soon 
after  coming  to  Venice  they  had  made  some  acquain- 
tance among  the  Italians  through  Mr.  Ferris,  and  had 
early  learned  that  the  condition  of  knowing  Vene- 
tians was  not  to  know  Austrians.  It  was  easy  and 
natural  for  them  to  submit,  theoretically.  As  Ameri- 
cans, they  must  respond  to  any  impulse  for  freedom, 
and  certainly  they  could  have  no  sympathy  with  such 
a  system  as  that  of  Austria.  By  whatever  was  sacred 
in  our  own  war  upon  slavery,  they  were  bound  to  ab- 
hor oppression  in  every  form.  But  it  was  hard 
to  make  the  application  of  their  hatred  to  the 
amiable-looking  people  whom  they  saw  everywhere 
around  them  in  the  quality  of  tyrants,  especially 
when  their  Venetian  friends  confessed  that  per- 
sonally they  liked  the  Austrians.  Besides,  if  the 
whole  truth  must  be  told,  they  found  that  their 
friendship  with  the  Italians  was  not  always  of  the 
most  penetrating  sort,  though  it  had  a  superficial 
intensity  that  for  a  while  gave  the  effect  of  lasting 


10  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

cordiality.  The  Elmores  were  not  quite  able  to 
decide  whether  the  pause  of  feeling  at  which  they 
arrived  was  through  their  own  defect  or  not.  Much 
was  to  be  laid  to  the  difference  of  race,  religion, 
and  education;  but  something,  they  feared,  to  the 
personal  vapidity  of  acquaintances  whose  meridi- 
onal liveliness  made  them  yawn,  and  in  whose  so- 
ciety they  did  not  always  find  compensation  for  the 
sacrifices  they  made  for  it. 

"But  it  is  right,"  said  Elmore.  "It  would  be  a 
sort  of  treason  to  associate  with  the  Austrians.  We 
owe  it  to  the  Venetians  to  let  them  see  that  our  feel- 
ings are  with  them." 

"  Yes,"  said  his  wife  pensively. 

"And  it  is  better  for  us,  as  Americans  abroad, 
during  this  war,  to  be  retired." 

"  Well,  we  are  retired,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  Yes,  there  is  no  doubt  of  that,"  he  returned. 

They  laughed,  and  made  what  they  could  of  chance 
American  acquaintances  at  the  caffes.  Elmore  had 
his  history  to  occupy  him,  and  doubtless  he  could 
not  understand  how  heavy  the  time  hung  upon  his 
wife's  hands.  They  went  often  to  the  theatre,  and 
every  evening  they  went  to  the  Piazza,  and  ate  an 
ice  at  Florian's.  This  was  certainly  amusement; 
and  routine  was  so  pleasant  to  his  scholarly  tempera- 


A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  11 

ment  that  he  enjoyed  merely  that.  He  made  a  point 
of  admitting  his  wife  as  much  as  possible  into  his 
intellectual  life;  he  read  her  his  notes  as  fast  as 
he  made  them,  and  he  consulted  her  upon  the 
management  of  his  theme,  which,  as  his  research 
extended,  he  found  so  vast  that  he  was  forced  to 
decide  upon  a  much  lighter  treatment  than  he  had 
at  first  intended.  He  had  resolved  upon  a  history 
which  should  be  presented  in  a  series  of  biograph- 
ical studies,  and  he  was  so  much  interested  in  this 
conclusion,  and  so  charmed  with  the  advantages  of 
the  form  as  they  developed  themselves,  that  he  be- 
gan to  lose  the  sense  of  social  dulness,  and  ceased 
to  imagine  it  in  his  wife. 

A  sort  of  indolence  of  the  sensibilities,  in  fact, 
enabled  him  to  endure  ennui  that  made  her  frantic, 
and  he  was  often  deeply  bored  without  knowing  it 
at  the  time,  or  without  a  reasoned  suffering.  He 
suffered  as  a  child  suffers,  simply,  almost  ignorant- 
ly:  it  was  upon  reflection  that  his  nerves  began 
to  quiver  with  retroactive  anguish.  He  was  also  able 
to  idealize  the  situation  when  his  wife  no  longer  even 
wished  to  do  so.  His  fancy  cast  a  poetry  about  these 
Venetian  friends,  whose  conversation  displayed  the 
occasional  sparkle  of  Ollendorff-English  on  a  dark 
ground  of  lagoon-Italian,  and  whose  vivid  smiling 


12  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.     ' 

and  gesticulation  she  wearied  herself  in  hospitable 
efforts  to  outdo.  To  his  eyes  their  historic  past 
clothed  them  with  its  interest,  and  the  long  patience 
of  their  hope  and  hatred  under  foreign  rule  enno- 
bled them,  while  to  hers  they  were  too  often  only 
tiresome  visitors,  whose  powers  of  silence  and  of 
eloquence  were  alike  to  be  dreaded.  It  did  not  con- 
sole her  as  it  did  her  husband  to  reflect  that  they 
probably  bored  the  Italians  as  much  in  their  turn. 
AVhen  a  young  man,  very  sympathetic  for  literature 
and  the  Americans,  spent  an  evening,  as  it  seemed  to 
her,  in  crying  nothing  but  "  Per  Bacco  ! "  she  owned 
that  she  liked  better  his  oppressor,,  who  once  came  by 
chance,  in  the  figure  of  a  young  lieutenant,  and  who 
unbuckled  his  wife,  as  he  called  his  sword,  and,  put- 
ting her  in  a  corner,  sat  up  on  a  chair  in  the  middle 
of  the  room  and  sang  like  a  bird,  and  then  told 
ghost-stories.  The  songs  were  out  of  Heine,  and 
they  reminded  her  of  her  girlish  enthusiasm  for 
German.  Elrnore  was  troubled  at  the  lieutenant's 
visit,  and  feared  it  would  cost  them  all  their  Ital- 
ian friends;  but  she  said  boldly  that  she  did  not 
care;  and  she  never  even  tried  to  believe  that  the 
life  they  saw  in  Venice  was  comparable  to  that  of 
their  little  college  town  at  home,  with  its  teas  and 
picnics,  and  simple,  easy  social  gayeties.  There  she 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  13 

had  been  a  power  in  her  way ;  she  had  entertained, 
and  had  helped  to  make  some  matches :  but  the  Ve- 
netians ate  nothing,  and  as  for  young  people,  they 
never  saw  each  other  but  by  stealth,  and  their 
matches  were  made  by  their  parents  on  a  money- 
basis.  She  could  not  adapt  herself  to  this  foreign 
life;  it  puzzled  her,  and  her  husband's  conformity 
seemed  to  estrange  them,  as  far  as  it  went.  It  took 
away  her  spirit,  and  she  grew  listless  and  dull.  Even 
the  history  began  to  lose  its  interest  in  her  eyes ;  she 
doubted  if  the  annals  of  such  a  people  as  she  saw 
about  her  could  ever  be  popular. 

There  were  other  things  to  make  them  melancholy 
in  their  exile.  The  war  at  home  was  going  badly, 
where  it  was  going  at  all.  The  letters  now  never  spoke 
of  any  term  to  it ;  they  expressed  rather  the  dogged 
patience  of  the  time  when  it  seemed  as  if  there  could 
be  no  end,  and  indicated  that  the  country  had  settled 
into  shape  about  it,  and  was  pushing  forward  its  other 
affairs  as  if  the  war  did  not  exist.  Mrs.  Elmore  felt 
that  the  America  which  she  had  left  had  ceased  to 
be.  The  letters  were  almost  less  a  pleasure  than  a 
pain,  but  she  always  tore  them  open,  and  read  them 
with  eager  unhappiness.  There  were  miserable  in- 
tervals of  days  and  even  weeks  when  no  letters  came, 
and  when  the  Eeuter  telegrams  in  the  Gazette  of 


14  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Venice  dribbled  their  vitriolic  news  of  Northern  dis- 
aster through  a  few  words  or  lines,  and  Galignani's 
long  columns  were  filled  with  the  hostile  exultation 
and  prophecy  of  the  London  press. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  15 


III. 


THEY  had  passed  eighteen  months  of  this  sort  of 
life  in  Venice  when  one  day  a  letter  dropped  into  it 
which  sent  a  thousand  ripples  over  its  stagnant  sur- 
face. Mrs.  Elmore  read  it  first  to  herself,  with  gasps 
and  cries  of  pleasure  and  astonishment,  which  did 
not  divert  her  husband  from  the  perusal  of  some 
notes  he  had  made  the  day  before,  and  had  brought  to 
the  breakfast-table  with  the  intention  of  amusing  her. 
When  she  flattened  it  out  over  his  notes,  and  exacted 
his  attention,  he  turned  an  unwilling  and  lack-lustre 
eye  upon  it ;  then  he  looked  up  at  her. 

"  Did  you  expect  she  would  come  ? "  he  asked,  in 
ill-masked  dismay. 

"  I  don't  suppose  they  had  any  idea  of  it  at  first. 
When  Sue  wrote  me  that  Lily  had  been  studying  too 
hard,  and  had  to  be  taken  out  of  school,  I  said  that  I 
wished  she  could  come  over  and  pay  us  a  visit.  But 
I  don't  believe  they  dreamed  of  letting  her  —  Sue 
says  so  —  till  the  Mortons'  coming  seemed  too  good  a 


16  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.     - 

chance  to  be  lost.  I  am  so  glad  of  it,  Owen !  You 
know  how  much  they  have  always  done  for  me  ;  and 
here  is  a  chance  now  to  pay  a  little  of  it  back." 

"  What  in  the  world  shall  we  do  with  her  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  Do  ?  Everything  !  Why,  Owen,"  she  urged,  with 
pathetic  recognition  of  his  coldness,  "she  is  Susy 
Stevens's  own  sister  ! " 

"  Oh,  yes  —  yes,"  he  admitted. 

"  And  it  was  Susy  who  brought  us  together  !  " 

"  Why,  of  course." 

"  And  ought  n't  you  to  be  glad  of  the  oppor- 
tunity ? " 

"  I  am  glad  —  very  glad." 

"  It  will  be  a  relief  to  you  instead  of  a  care.  She  's 
such  a  bright,  intelligent  girl  that  we  can  both  sym- 
pathize with  your  work,  and  you  won't  have  to  go 
round  with  me  all  the  time,  and  I  can  matronize  her 
myself." 

"  I  see,  I  see,"  Elmore  replied,  with  scarcely  abated 
seriousness.  "  Perhaps,  if  she  is  coming  here  for  her 
health,  she  won't  need  much  matrouizing." 

"  Oh,  pshaw !  She  '11  be  well  enough  for  that  ! 
She 's  overdone  a  little  at  school.  I  shall  take  good 
care  of  her,  I  can  tell  you  ;  and  I  shall  make  her 
have  a  real  good  time.  It 's  quite  flattering  of  Susy 


A  FEARFUL  EESPONSIBILITY.  17 

to  trust  her  to  us,  so  far  away,  and  I  shall  write  and 
tell  her  we  both  think  so." 

"  Yes,"  said  Elmore,  "  it 's  a  fearful  responsibility." 

There  are  instances  of  the  persistence  of  husbands 
in  certain  moods  or  points  of  view  on  which  even 
wheedling  has  no  effect.  The  wise  woman  perceives 
that  in  these  cases  she  must  trust  entirely  to  the 
softening  influences  of  time,  and  as  much  as  possible 
she  changes  the  subject;  or  if  this  is  impossible  she 
may  hope  something  from  presenting  a  still,  worse 
aspect  of  the  affair.  Mrs.  Elmore  said,  in  lifting  the 
letter  from  the  table :  "  If  she  sailed  the  3d  in  the 
City  of  Timbuctoo,  she  will  be  at  Queenstown  on 
the  12th  or  13th,  and  we  shall  have  a  letter  from 
her  by  Wednesday  saying  when  she  will  be  at 
Genoa.  That 's  as  far  as  the  Mortons  can  bring  her, 
and  there  's  where  we  must  meet  her." 

"  Meet  her  in  Genoa !     How  ?  " 

"  By  going  there  for  her,"  replied  Mrs.  Elmore,  as  if 
this  were  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world.  "  1  have 
never  seen  Genoa." 

Elmore  now  tacitly  abandoned  himself  to  his  fate. 
His  wife  continued :  "  I  need  n't  take  anything. 
Merely  run  on,  and  right  back." 

"  When  must  we  go  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  don't  know  yet ;  but  we  shall  have  a  letter  to- 


18  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.       ' 

morrow:  Don't  worry  on  my  account,  Owen.  Her 
coming  won't  be  a  bit  of  care  to  me.  It  will  give  me 
something  to  do  and  to  think  about,  and  it  will  be  a 
pleasure  all  the  time  to  know  that  it 's  for  Susy 
Stevens.  And  I  shall  like  the  companionship." 

Elmore  looked  at  his  wife  in  surprise,  for  it  had 
not  occurred  to  him  before  that  with  his  company  she 
could  desire  any  other  companionship.  He  desired 
none  but  hers,  and  when  he  was  about  his  work  he 
often  thought  of  her.  He  supposed  that  at  these 
moments  she  thought  of  him,  and  found  society,  as 
he  did,  in  such  thoughts.  But  he  was  not  a  jealous 
or  exacting  man,  and  he  said  nothing.  His  treatment 
of  the  approaching  visit  from  Susy  Stevens's  sister 
had  not  been  enthusiastic,  but  a  spark  had  kindled 
his  imagination,  and  it  burned  warmer  and  brighter  as 
the  days  went  by.  He  found  a  charm  in  the  thought 
of  having  this  fresh  young  life  here  in  his  charge,  and 
of  teaching  the  girl  to  live  into  the  great  and  beauti- 
ful history  of  the  city :  there  was  still  much  of  the 
school-master  in  him,  and  he  intended  to  make  her 
sojourn  an  education  to  her ;  and  as  a  literary  man  he 
hoped  for  novel  effects  from  her  mind  upon  material 
which  he  was  above  all  trying  to  set  in  a  new  light 
before  himself. 

When  the  time  had  arrived  for  them  to  go  and 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  19 

meet  Miss  Mayhew  at  Genoa,  he  was  more  than  re- 
conciled to  the  necessity.  But  at  the  last  moment, 
Mrs.  Elmore  had  one  of  her  old  attacks.  What 
these  attacks  were  I  find  myself  unable  to  specify, 
but  as  every  lady  has  an  old  attack  of  some  kind, 
I  may  safely  leave  their  precise  nature  to  conjec- 
ture. It  is  enough  that  they  were  of  a  nervous 
character,  that  they  were  accompanied  with  headache, 
and  that  they  prostrated  her  for  several  days.  During 
their  continuance  she  required  the  active  sympathy 
and  constant  presence  of  her  husband,  whose  devo- 
tion was  then  exemplary,  and  brought  up  long  arrears 
of  indebtedness  in  that  way. 

"  Well,  what  shall  we  do  ? "  he  asked,  as  he  sank 
into  a  chair  beside  the  lounge  on  which  Mrs.  Elmore 
lay,  her  eyes  closed,  and  a  slice  of  lemon  placed 
on  each  of  her  throbbing  temples  with  the  effect  of  a 
new  sort  of  blinders.  "  Shall  I  go  alone  for  her  ?  " 

She  gave  his  hand  the  kind  of  convulsive  clutch 
that  signified,  "  Impossible  for  you  to  leave  me." 

He  reflected.  "  The  Mortons  will  be  pushing  on 
to  Leghorn,  and  somebody  must  meet  her.  How 
would  it  do  for  Mr.  Hoskins  to  go  ? " 

Mrs.  Elmore  responded  with  a  clutch  tantamount 
to  "Horrors!  How  could  you  think  .of  such  a 
thing  ? " 


20  A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.    , 

"  Well,  then,"  he  said,  "  the  only  thing  we  can  do 
is  to  send  a  valet  de  place  for  her.  We  can  send  old 
Cazzi.  He's  the  incarnation  of  respectability;  five 
francs  a  day  and  his  expenses  will  buy  all  the  virtues 
of  him.  She  '11  come  as  safely  with  him  as  with  me." 

Mrs.  Elmore  had  applied  a  vividly  thoughtful 
pressure  to  her  husband's  hand ;  she  now  released  it 
in  token  of  assent,  and  he  rose. 

"  But  don't  be  gone  long,"  she  whispered. 

On  his  way  to  the  caffe  which  Cazzi  frequented, 
Elmore  fell  in  with  the  consul. 

By  this  time  a  change  had  taken  place  in  the 
consular  office.  Mr.  Ferris,  some  months  before,  had 
suddenly  thrown  up  his  charge  and  gone  home ;  and 
after  the  customary  interval  of  ship-chandler,  the 
California  sculptor,  Hoskins,  had  arrived  out,  with 
his  commission  in  his  pocket,  and  had  set  up  his 
allegorical  figure  of  The  Pacific  Slope  in  the  room 
where  Ferris  had  painted  his  too  metaphysical  con- 
ception of  A  Venetian  Priest.  Mrs.  Elmore  had  never 
liked  Ferris;  she  thought  him  cynical  and  opinion- 
ated, and  she  believed  that  he  had  not  behaved  quite 
well  towards  a  young  American  lady,  —  a  Miss  Ver- 
vain, who  had  stayed  awhile  in  Venice  with  her  mother. 
She  was  glad  to  have  him  go  ;  but  she  could  not  ad- 
mire Mr.  Hoskins,  who,  however  good-hearted,  was 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  21 

too  hopelessly  Western.  He  had  had  part  of  one 
foot  shot  away  in  the  nine  months'  service,  and 
walked  with  a  limp  that  did  him  honor ;  and  he  knew 
as  much  of  a  consul's  business  as  any  of  the  authors 
or  artists  with  whom  it  is  the  tradition  to  fill  that 
office  at  Venice.  Besides  he  was  at  least  a  fellow- 
American,  and  Elmore  could  not  forbear  telling  him 
the  trouble  he  was  in  :  a  young  girl  coming  from  their 
town  in  America  as  far  as  Genoa  with  friends,  and 
expecting  to  be  met  there  by  the  Elmores,  with 
whom  she  was  to  pass  some  months ;  Mrs.  Elrnore 
utterly  prostrated  by  one  of  her  old  attacks,  and  he 
unable  to  leave  her,  or  to  take  her  with  him  to  Genoa ; 
the  friends  with  whom  Miss  Mayhew  travelled  unable 
to  bring  her  to  Venice  ;  she,  of  course,  unable  to  come 
alone.  The  case  deepened  and  darkened  in  Elmore's 
view  as  he  unfolded  it. 

"  Why,"  cried  the  consul  sympathetically,  "  if  I 
could  leave  my  post  I  'd  go  ! " 

"Oh,  thank  you!"  cried  Elmore  eagerly,  remember- 
ing his  wife.  "  I  could  n't  think  of  letting  you." 

"  Look  here ! "  said  the  consul,  taking  an  official 
letter,  with  the  seal  broken,  from  his  pocket.  "  This 
is  the  first  time  I  could  n't  have  left  my  post  with- 
out distinct  advantage  to  the  public  interests,  since 
I've  been  here.  But  with  this  letter  from  Turin, 


22  A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

telling  me  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  the  Alabama,  I 
could  n't  go  to  Genoa  even  to  meet  a  young  lady. 
The  Austrians  have  never  recognized  the  rebels  as 
belligerents  :  if  she  enters  the  port  of  Venice,  all  I  've 
got  to  do  is  to  require  the  deposit  of  her  papers  with 
me,  and  then  I  should  like  to  see  her  get  out  again. 
I  should  like  to  capture  her.  Of  course,  I  don't  mean 
Miss  Mayhew,"  said  the  consul,  recognizing  the 
double  sense  in  which  his  language  could  be  taken. 

"  It  would  be  a  great  thing  for  you,"  said  Elmore, 
—  "a  great  thing." 

"  Yes,  it  would  set  me  up  in  my  own  eyes,  and 
stop  that  infernal  clatter  inside  about  going  over  and 
taking  a  hand  again." 

"Yes,"  Elmore  assented,  with  a  twinge  of  the 
old  shame.  "  I  did  n't  know  you  had  it  too." 

"If  I  could  capture  the  Alabama,  I  could  afford 
to  let  the  other  fellows  fight  it  out." 

"  I  congratulate  you,  with  all  my  heart,"  said  El- 
more sadly,  and  he  walked  in  silence  beside  the 
consul. 

"Well,"  said  the  latter,  with  a  laugh  at  Elmore's 
pensive  rapture,  "  I  'm  as  much  obliged  to  you  as  if 
I  had  captured  her.  1 11  go  up  to  the  Piazza  with 
you,  and  see  Cazzi.'' 

The  affair  was  easily  arranged ;  Cazzi  was  made 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  23 

to  feel  by  the  consul's  intervention  that  the  shield  of 
American  sovereignty  had  been  extended  over  the 
young  girl  whom  he  was  to  escort  from  Genoa,  and 
two  days  later  he  arrived  with  her.  Mrs.  Elmore's 
attack  now  was  passing  off,  and  she  was  well  enough 
to  receive  Miss  Mayhew  half-recumbent  on  the  sofa 
where  she  had  been  prone  till  her  arrival.  It  was 
pretty  to  see  her  fond  greeting  of  the  girl,  and  her 
joy  in  her  presence  as  they  sat  down  for  the  first  long 
talk ;  and  Elmore  realized,  even  in  his  dreamy  with- 
drawal, how  much  the  bright,  active  spirit  of  his  wife 
had  suffered  merely  in  the  restriction  of  her  English. 
Now  it  was  not  only  English  they  spoke,  but  that 
American  variety  of  the  language  of  which  I  hope 
we  shall  grow  less  and  less  ashamed ;  and  not  only 
this,  but  their  parlance  was  characterized  by  local 
turns  and  accents,  which  all  came  welcomely  back 
to  Mrs.  Elmore,  together  with  those  still  more  inti- 
mate inflections  which  belonged  to  her  own  parti- 
cular circle  of  friends  in  the  little  town  of  Patmos, 
K  Y.  Lily  Mayhew  was  of  course  not  of  her  own  set, 
being  five  or  six  years  younger;  but  women,  more 
easily  than  men,  ignore  the  disparities  of  age  between 
themselves  and  their  juniors  ;  and  in  Susy  Stevens's 
absence  it  seemed  a  sort  of  tribute  to  her  to  establish 
her  sister  in  the  affection  which  Mrs.  Elmore  had  so 


24  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  • 

long  cherished.  Their  friendship  had  been  of  such 
a  thoroughly  trusted  sort  on  both  sides  that  Mrs. 
Stevens  (the  memorably  'brilliant  Sue  May  hew  in  her 
girlish  days)  had  felt  perfectly  free  to  act  upon  Mrs. 
Elmore's  invitation  to  let  Lily  come  out  to  her ;  and 
here  the  child  was,  as  much  at  home  as  if  she  had 
just  walked  into  Mrs.  Elmore's  parlor  out  of  her 
sister's  house  in  Patmos. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  25 


IV. 

THEY  briefly  dispatched  the  facts  relating  to  Miss 
Mayhew's  voyage,  and  her  journey  to  Genoa,  and 
came  as  quickly  as  they  could  to  all  those  things 
which  Mrs.  Elmore  was  thirsting  to  learn  about  the 
town  and  its  people.  "  Is  it  much  changed  ?  I  sup- 
pose it  is,"  she  sighed.  "The  war  changes  every- 
thing." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  notice  the  war  much,"  said  Miss 
Mayhew.  "  But  Patmos  is  gay,  —  perfectly  delightful. 
"We  've  got  one  of  the  camps  there  now ;  and  such 
times  as  the  girls  have  with  the  officers  !  We  have 
lots  of  fun  getting  up  things  for  the  Sanitary.  Hops 
on  the  parade-ground  at  the  camp,  and  going  out  to 
see  the  prisoners,  —  you  never  saw  such  a  place." 

"  The  prisoners  ? "  murmured  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  Why,  yes  !  "  cried  Lily,  with  a  gay  laugh.  "  Did  n't 
you  know  that  we  had  a  prison-camp  too  ?  Some  of 
the  Southerners  look  real  nice.  I  pitied  them,"  she 
added,  with  unabated  gayety. 


26  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  Your  sister  wrote  to  me,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore ;  "  but 
I  could  n't  realize  it,  I  suppose,  and  so  I  forgot  it." 

"Yes/'  pursued  Lily,  "and  Frank  Halsey  's  in 
command.  You  would  never  know  by  the  way  he 
walks  that  he  had  a  cork  leg.  Of  course  he  can't 
dance,  though,  poor  fellow.  He 's  pale,  and  he 's 
perfectly  fascinating.  So's  Dick  Burton,  with  his 
empty  sleeve  ;  he  's  one  of  the  recruiting  officers,  and 
there  's  nobody  so  popular  with  the  girls.  You  can't 
think  how  funny  it  is,  Professor  Elmore,  to  see  the 
old  college  buildings  used  for  barracks.  Dick  says 
it 's  much  livelier  than  it  was  when  he  was  a  student 
there." 

"  I  suppose  it  must  be,"  dreamily  assented  the  pro- 
fessor. "  Does  he  find  plenty  of  volunteers  ? " 

"  Well,  you  know/'  the  young  girl  explained,  "  that 
the  old  style  of  volunteering  is  all  over." 

"  No,  I  did  n't  know  it." 

"  Yes.  It's  the  bounties  now  that  they  rely  upon, 
and  they  do  say  that  it  will  come  to  the  draft  very 
soon,  now.  Some  of  the  young  men  have  gone  to 
Canada.  But  everybody  despises  them.  Oh,  Mrs. 
Elmore,  I  should  think  you'd  be  so  glad  to  have  the 
professor  off  here,  and  honorably  out  of  the  way ! " 

"  I  'm  dishonorably  out  of  the  way ;  I  can  never 
forgive  myself  for  not  going  to  the  war,"  said  Elmore. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  27 

"Why,  how  ridiculous!"  cried  Lily.  "Nobody 
feels  that  way  about  it  now  !  As  Dick  Burton  says, 
we  've  come  down  to  business.  I  tell  you,  when  you 
see  arms  and  legs  off  in  every  direction,  and  women 
going  about  in  black,  you  don't  feel  that  it 's  such  a 
romantic  thing  any  more.  There  are  mighty  few  en- 
gagements now,  Mrs.  Elmore,  when  a  regiment  sets 
off ;  no  presentation  of  revolvers  in  the  town  hall ;  and 
some  of  the  widows  have  got  married  again ;  and  that 
I  don't  think  is  right.  But  what  can  they  do,  poor 
things  ?  You  remember  Tom  Friar's  widow,  Mrs. 
Elmore  ? " 

"  Tom  Friar's  widow  !     Is  Tom  Friar  dead  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course !  One  of  the  first.  I  think  it  was 
Ball's  Bluff.  Well,  she  's  married.  But  she  mar- 
ried his  cousin,  and  as  Dick  Burton  says,  that  is  n  't 
so  bad.  Is  n't  it  awful,  Mrs.  Clapp's  losing  all  her 
boys,  —  all  five  of  them  ?  It  does  seem  to  bear  too 
hard  on  some  families.  And  then,  when  you  see 
every  one  of  those  six  Armstrongs  going  through 
without  a  scratch!" 

"I  suppose,"  said  Elmore,  "that  business  is  at 
a  standstill.  The  streets  must  look  rather  dreary." 

"  Business  at  a  standstill ! "  exclaimed  Lily.  "  What 
has  Sue  been  writing  you  all  this  time  ?  Why,  there 
never  was  such  prosperity  in  Patmos  before  !  Every- 


28  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

body  is  making  money,  and  people  that  you  would  n't 
hardly  speak  to  a  year  ago  are  giving  parties  and  in- 
viting the  old  college  families.  You  ought  to  see  the 
residences  and  business  blocks  going  up  all  over  the 
place.  I  don't  suppose  you  would  know  Patmos  now. 
You  remember  George  Fenton,  Mrs.  Elmore  ? " 

"  Mr.  Haskell's  clerk  ?  " 

"Yes.  Well,  he  's  made  a  fortune  out  of  an 
army  contract;  and  he  's  going  to  marry  —  the 
engagement  came  out  just  before  I  left  —  Bella 
Stearns." 

At  these  words  Mrs.  Elmore  sat  upright,  —  the 
only  posture  in  which  the  fact  could  be  imagined. 
"Lily!" 

"  Oh,  I  can  tell  you  these  are  gay  times  in  Amer- 
ica," triumphed  the  young  girl.  She  now  put  her 
hand  to  her  mouth  and  hid  a  yawn. 

"You're  sleepy,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore.     "Well,  you* 
know  the  way  to  your  room.     You  '11  find  everything 
ready  there,  and  I  shall  let  you  go  alone.     You  shall 
commence  being  at  home  at  once." 

"  Yes,  I  am  sleepy,"  assented  Lily ;  and  she  promptly 
said  her  good-nights  and  vanished ;  though  a  keener 
eye  than  Elmore's  might  have  seen  that  her  prompt- 
ness had  a  color  —  or  say  light  —  of  hesitation  in  it. 

But  he  only  walked  up  and  down  the  room,  after 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  29 

she  was  gone,  in  unlieedful  distress.  "  Gay  times  in 
America  !  Good  heavens  !  Is  the  child  utterly  heart- 
less, Celia,  or  is  she  merely  obtuse  ?  " 

"  She  certainly  is  n't  at  all  like  Sue,"  sighed  Mrs. 
Elmore,  who  had  not  had  time  to  formulate  Lily's  de- 
fence. "  But  she  's  excited  now,  and  a  little  off  her 
balance.  She  '11  be  different  to-morrow.  Besides, 
all  America  seems  changed,  and  the  people  with  it. 
We  should  n't  have  noticed  it  if  we  had  stayed  there, 
but  we  feel  it  after  this  absence." 

"  I  never  realized  it  before,  as  I  did  from  her  babble ! 
The  letters  have  told  us  the  same  thing,  but  they 
were  like  the  histories  of  other  times.  Camps,  pris- 
oners, barracks,  mutilation,  widowhood,  death,  sudden 
gains,  social  upheavals,  —  it  is  the  old,  hideous 
story  of  war  come  true  of  our  day  and  country.  It 's 
terrible ! " 

"  She  will  miss  the  excitement,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore. 
"  I  don't  know  exactly  what  we  shall  do  with  her. 
Of  course,  she  can't  expect  the  attentions  she 's  been 
used  to  in  Patmos,  with  those  young  men." 

Elmore  stopped,  and  stared  at  his  wife.  "  What 
do  you  mean,  Celia  ? " 

"  We  don't  go  into  society  at  all,  and  she  does  n't 
speak  Italian.  How  shall  we  amuse  her  ? " 

"  Well,  upon  my  word,  I  don't  know  that  we  're 


30  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.    , 

x 

obliged  to  provide  her  amusement !  Let  her  amuse 
herself.  Let  her  take  up  some  branch  of  study,  or 
of — of — research,  and  get  something  besides  'fun' 
into  her  head,  if  possible."  He  spoke  boldly,  but  his 
wife's  question  had  unnerved  him,  for  he  had  a  soft 
heart,  and  liked  people  about  him  to  be  happy.  "  We 
can  show  her  the  objects  of  interest.  And  there  are 
the  theatres,"  he  added. 

"  Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore.  "  We  can 
both  go  about  with  her.  I  will  just  peep  in  at  her 
now,  and  see  if  she  has  everything  she  wants."  She 
rose  from  her  sofa  and  went  to  Lily's  room,  whence 
she  did  not  return  for  nearly  three  quarters  of  an 
hour.  By  this  time  Elmore  had  got  out  his  notes, 
and,  in  their  transcription  and  classification,  had 
fallen  into  forgetfulness  of  his  troubles.  His  wife 
closed  the  door  behind  her,  and  said  in  a  low  voice, 
little  above  a  whisper,  as  she  sank  very  quietly  into 
a  chair,  "  Well,  it  has  all  come  out,  Owen." 

"  What  has  all  come  out  ? "  he  asked,  looking  up 
stupidly. 

"I  knew  that  she  had  something  on  her  mind,  by 
the  way  she  acted.  And  you  saw  her  give  me  that 
look  as  she  went  out  ?  " 

"No  — no,  I  didn't.  What  look  was  it?  She 
looked  sleepy." 


A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  31 

"She  looked  terribly,  terribly  excited,  and  as  if 
she  would  like  to  say  something  to  me.  That  was 
the  reason  I  said  I  would  let  her  go  to  her  room 
alone." 

"  Oh  ! " 

"  Of  course  she  would  have  felt  awfully  if  I  had 
gone  straight  off  with  her.  So  I  waited.  It  may 
never  come  to  anything  in  the  world,  and  I  don't 
suppose  it  will ;  but  it 's  quite  enough  to  account  for 
everything  you  saw  in  her." 

"I  didn't  see  anything  in  her,  —  that  was  the 
difficulty.  But  what  is  it  —  what  is  it,  Celia  ?  You 
know  how  I  hate  these  delays." 

"Why,  I  'm  not  sure  that  I  need  tell  you,  Owen; 
and  yet  I  suppose  I  had  better.  It  will  be  safer," 
said  Mrs.  Elmore,  nursing  her  mystery  to  the  last, 
enjoying  it  for  its  own  sake,  and  dreading  it  for  its 
effect  upon  her  husband.  "  I  suppose  you  will  think 
your  troubles  are  beginning  pretty  early,"  she  sug- 
gested. 

"  Is  it  a  trouble  ?  " 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  it  is.  If  it  comes  to 
the  very  worst,  I  dare  say  that  every  one  would  n't 
call  it  a  trouble." 

Elmore  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair  in  an  atti- 
tude of  endurance.  "  What  would  the  worst  be  ? " 


32  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  Why,  it 's  no  use  even  to  discuss  that,  for  it 's 
perfectly  absurd  to  suppose  that  it  could  ever  come 
to  that.  But  the  case,"  added  Mrs.  Elmore,  perceiv- 
ing that  further  delay  was  only  further  suffering  for 
her  husband,  and  that  any  fact  would  now  prob- 
ably fall  far  short  of  his  apprehensions,  "  is  simply 
this,  and  I  don't  know  that  it  amounts  to  anything  ; 
but  at  Peschiera,  just  before  the  train  started,  she 
looked  out  of  the  window,  and  saw  a  splendid  officer 
walking  up  and  down  and  smoking ;  and  before  she 
could  draw  back  he  must  have  seen  her,  for  he 
threw  away  his  cigar  instantly,  and  got  into  the  same 
compartment.  He  talked  awhile  in  German  with  an 
old  gentleman  who  was  there,  and  then  he  spoke  in 
Italian  with  Cazzi ;  and  afterwards,  when  he  heard 
her  speaking  English  with  Cazzi,  he  joined  in.  I 
don't  know  how  he  came  to  join  in  at  first,  and  she 
does  n't,  either ;  but  it  seems  that  he  knew  some 
English,  and  he  began  speaking.  He  was  very  tall 
and  handsome  and  distinguished-looking,  and  a  perfect 
gentleman  in  his  manners ;  and  she  says  that  she 
saw  Cazzi  looking  rather  queer,  but  he  didn't  say 
anything,  and  so  she  kept  on  talking.  She  told  him 
at  once  that  she  was  an  American,  and  that  she  was 
coming  here  to  stay  with  friends ;  and,  as  he  was 
very  curious  about  America,  she  told  him  all  she 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  33 

could  think  of.  It  did  her  good  to  talk  about  home, 
for  she  had  been  feeling  a  little  blue  at  being  so  far 
away  from  everybody.  Now,  /  don't  see  any  harm 
in  it ;  do  you,  Owen  ?  " 

"It  isn't  according  to  the  custom  here;  but  we 
need  n't  care  for  that.  Of  course  it  was  imprudent." 

"  Of  course,"  Mrs.  Elmore  admitted.  "  The  officer 
was  very  polite;  and  when  he  found  that  she  was 
from  America,  it  turned  out  that  he  was  a  great 
sympathizer  with  the  North,  and  that  he  had  a 
brother  in  our  army.  Don't  you  think  that  was 
nice  ? " 

"Probably  some  mere  soldier  of  fortune,  with  no 
heart  in  the  cause,"  said  Elmore. 

"  And  very  likely  he  has  no  brother  there,  as  I  told 
Lily.  He  told  her  he  was  coming  to  Padua ;  but 
when  they  reached  Padua,  he  came  right  on  to  Venice. 
That  shows  you  could  n't  place  any  dependence  upon 
what  he  said.  He  said  he  expected  to  be  put  under 
arrest  for  it ;  but  he  did  n't  care,  —  he  was  coming. 
Do  you  believe  they  11  put  him  under  arrest  ? " 

"  I  don 't  know  —  I  don  't  know,"  said  Elmore,  in  a 
voice  of  grief  and  apprehension,  which  might  well 
have  seemed  anxiety  for  the  officer's  liberty. 

"  I  told  her  it  was  one  of  his  jokes.  He  was  very 
funny,  and  kept  her  laughing  the  whole  way,  with 


34  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

his  broken  English  and  his  witty  little  remarks. 
She  says  he 's  just  dying  to  go  to  America.  Who  do 
you  suppose  it  can  be,  Owen  ? " 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  We  Ve  no  acquaintance 
among  the  Austrians,"  groaned  Elrnore. 

"  That 's  what  I  told  Lily.  She 's  no  idea  of  the 
state  of  things  here,  and  she  was  quite  horrified. 
But  she  says  he  was  a  perfect  gentleman  in  every- 
thing. He  belongs  to  the  engineer  corps,  —  that's 
one  of  the  highest  branches  of  the  service,  he  told 
her,  —  and  he  gave  her  his  card." 

"  Gave  her  his  card  ! " 

Mrs.  Elmore  had  it  in  the  hand  which  she  had 
been  keeping  in  her  pocket,  and  she  now  suddenly 
produced  it ;  and  Elmore  read  the  name  and  address 
of  Ernst  von  Ehrhardt,  Captain  of  the  Eoyal-Imperial 
Engineers,  Peschiera.  "  She  says  she  knows  he  wanted 
hers,  but  she  did  n't  offer  to  give  it  to  him ;  and  he 
didn't  ask  her  where  she  was  going,  or  anything." 

"  He  knew  that  he  could  get  her  address  from  Cazzi 
for  ten  soldi  as  soon  as  her  back  was  turned,"  said 
Elmore  cynically.  "  What  then  ?  " 

"  Why,  he  said  —  and  this  is  the  only  really  bold 
thing  he  did  do  —  that  he  must  see  her  again,  and 
that  he  should  stay  over  a  day  in  Venice  in  hopes  of 
meeting  her  at  the  theatre  or  somewhere." 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  35 

"It's  a  piece  of  high-handed  impudence!"  cried 
Elmore.  "Now,  Celia,  you  see  what  these  people 
are  !  Do  you  wonder  that  the  Italians  hate  them  ? " 

"  You  've  often  said  they  only  hate  their  system." 

"The  Austrians  are  part  of  their  system.  He 
thinks  he  can  take  any  liberty  with  us  because  he  is 
an  Austrian  officer !  Lily  must  not  stir  out  of  the 
house  to-morrow." 

"  She  will  be  too  tired  to  do  so,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  And  if  he  molests  us  further,  I  will  appeal  to  the 
consul."  Elmore  began  to  walk  up  and  down  the 
room  again. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  whether  you  could  call  it 
molesting,  exactly,"  suggested  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Celia  ?  Do  you  suppose  that 
she  —  she  —  encouraged  this  officer  ? " 

"  Owen !  It  was  all  in  the  simplicity  and  in- 
nocence of  her  heart!" 

"  Well,  then,  that  she  wishes  to  see  him  again  ? " 

"Certainly  not!  But  that's  no  reason  why  we 
should  be  rude  about  it." 

"  Eude  about  it  ?  How  ?  Is  simply  avoiding  him 
rudeness  ?  Is  proposing  to  protect  ourselves  from 
his  impertinence  rudeness  ? " 

"  No.  And  if  you  can 't  see  the  matter  for  yourself, 
Owen,  I  don 't  know  how  any  one  is  to  make  you." 


36  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.    , 

"  Why,  Celia,  one  would  think  that  you  approved 
of  this  man's  behavior,  —  that  you  wished  her  to 
meet  him  again !  You  understand  what  the  conse- 
quences would  be  if  we  received  this  officer.  You 
know  how  all  the  Venetians  would  drop  us,  and  we 
should  have  no  acquaintances  here  outside  of  the 
army." 

"  Who  has  asked  you  to  receive  him,  Owen  ?  And 
as  for  the  Italians  dropping  us,  that  does  n  't  frighten 
me.  But  what  could  he  do  if  he  did  meet  her  again  ? 
She  need  n 't  look  at  him.  She  says  he  is  very  intel- 
ligent, and  that  he  has  read  a  great  many  English 
books,  though  he  does  n 't  speak  it  very  well,  and  that 
he  knows  more  about  the  war  than  she  does.  But  of 
course  she  won't  go  out  to-morrow.  All  that  I  hate 
is  that  we  should  seem  to  be  frightened  into  staying 
at  home." 

"  She  need  11  't  stay  in  on  his  account.  You  said 
she  would  be  too  tired  to  go  out." 

"I  see  by  the  scattering  way  you  talk,  Owen,  that 
your  mind  is  n't  on  the  subject,  and  that  you're 
anxious  to  get  back  to  your  work.  I  won't  keep 
you." 

"  Celia,  Celia  !  Be  fair,  now  ! "  cried  Elmore.  "  You 
know  very  well  that  I  'm  only  too  deeply  interested 
in  this  matter,  and  that  I  'm  not  likely  to  get  back  to 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  37 

my  work  to-night,  at  least.     What  is  it  you  wish  me 
to  do  ? " 

Mrs.  Ehnore  considered  a  while.  "  I  don 't  wish 
you  to  do  anything,"  she  returned  placably.  "  Of 
course,  you  're  perfectly  right  in  not  choosing  to  let 
an  acquaintance  begun  in  that  way  go  any  further. 
We  should  n  't  at  home,  and  we  sha  'n  't  here.  But  I 
don't  wish  you  to  think  that  Lily  has  been  impru- 
dent, under  the  circumstances.  She  does  ir't  know 
that  it  was  anything  out  of  the  way,  but  she  happened 
to  do  the  best  that  any  one  could.  Of  course,  it 
/  was  very  exciting  and  very  romantic  ;  girls  like  such 
things,  and  there 's  no  reason  they  should  n 't.  We 
must  manage,"  added  Mrs.  Ehnore,  "  so  that  she  shall 
see  that  we  appreciate  her  conduct,  and  trust  in  her 
entirely.  I  would  n't  do  anything  to  wound  her 
pride  or  self-confidence.  I  would  rather  send  her 
out  alone  to-morrow." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Elmore. 

"  And  if  I  were  with  her  when  she  met  him,  I 
believe  I  should  leave  it  entirely  to  her  how  to 
behave." 

"  Well,"  said  Ehnore,  "  you  're  not  likely  to  be  put 
to  the  test.  He'll  hardly  force  his  way  into  the 
house,  and  she  is  n't  going  out." 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore.    She  added,  after  a  silence, 


38  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  I  'm  trying  to  think  whether  I  've  ever  seen  him  in 
Venice ;  he 's  here  often.  But  there  are  so  many  tall 
officers  with  fair  complexions  and  English  beards.  I 
should  like  to  know  how  he  looks  !  She  said  he  was 
very  aristocratic-looking." 

"  Yes,  it 's  a  fine  type,"  said  Elmore.  "  They  're 
all  nobles,  I  believe." 

"But  after  all,  they're  no  better  looking  than 
our  boys,  who  come  up  out  of  nothing." 

"  Ours  are  Americans,"  said  Elmore. 

"  And  they  are  the  best  husbands,  as  I  told  Lily." 

Elmore  looked  at  his  wife,  as  she  turned  dreamily 
to  leave  the  room;  but  since  the  conversation  had 
taken  this  impersonal  turn  he  would  not  say  any- 
thing to  change  its  complexion.  A  conjecture  vague- 
ly taking  shape  in  his  mind  resolved  itself  to  nothing 
again,  and  left  him  with  only  the  ache  of  something 
unascertained. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  39 


V. 


IN  the  morning  Lily  came  to  breakfast  as  bloom- 
ing as  a  rose.  The  sense  of  her  simple,  fresh,  whole- 
some loveliness  might  have  pierced  even  the  indiffer- 
ence of  a  man  to  whom  there  was  but  one  pretty 
woman  in  the  world,  and  who  had  lived  since  their 
marriage  as  if  his  wife  had  absorbed  her  whole  sex 
into  herself :  this  deep,  unconscious  constancy  was  a 
noble  trait  in  him,  but  it  is  not  so  rare  in  men  as 
women  would  have  us  believe.  For  Elmore,  Miss 
Mayhew  merely  pervaded  the  place  in  her  finer 
way,  as  the  flowers  on  the  table  did,  as  the  sweet 
butter,  the  new  eggs,  and  the  morning's  French 
bread  did ;  he  looked  at  her  with  a  perfectly  serene 
ignorance  of  her  piquant  face,  her  beautiful  eyes 
and  abundant  hair,  and  her  trim,  straight  figure. 
But  his  wife  exulted  in  every  particular  of  her 
charm,  and  was  as  generously  glad  of  it  as  if  it  were 
her  own ;  as  women  are  when  they  are  sure  that  the 
charm  of  others  has  no  designs.  The  ladies  twit- 


40  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

tered  and  laughed  together,  and  as  he  was  a  man 
without  small  talk,  he  soon  dropped  out  of  the  con- 
versation into  a  reverie,  from  which  he  found  himself 
presently  extracted  by  a  question  from  his  wife. 

"  We  had  better  go  in  a  gondola,  had  n't  we, 
Owen?"  She  seemed  to  be,  as  she  put  this,  trying 
to  look  something  into  him.  He,  on  his  part,  tried 
his  best  to  make  out  her  meaning,  but  failed. 

He  simply  asked,  "  Where  ?     Are  you  going  out  ?  " 

"Yes.  Lily  has  some  shopping  she  must  do.  I 
think  we  can  get  it  at  Pazienti's  in  San  Polo." 

Again  she  tried  to  pierce  him  with  her  meaning. 
It  seemed  to  him  a  sudden  advance  from  the  position 
she  had  taken  the  night  before  in  regard  to  Miss 
Mayhew's  not  going  out ;  but  he  could  not  understand 
his  wife's  look,  and  he  feared  to  misinterpret  if  he 
opposed  her  going.  He  decided  that  she  wished  him 
for  some  reason  to  oppose  the  gondola,  so  he  said, 
"  I  think  you  'd  better  walk,  if  Lily  is  n't  too  tired." 

"  Oh,  /'  m  not  tired  at  all ! "  she  cried. 

"  I  can  go  with  you,  in  that  direction,  on  my  way 
to  the  library,"  he  added. 

"  Well,  that  will  be  very  nice,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore, 
discontinuing  her  look,  and  leaving  her  husband 
with  an  uneasy  sense  of  wantonly  assumed  respon- 
sibility. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  41 

"She, can  step  into  the  Frari  a  moment,  and  see 
those  tombs,"  he  said.  "  I  think  it  will  amuse  her." 

Lily  broke  into  a  laugh.  "  Is  that  the  way  you 
amuse  yourselves  in  Venice  ? "  she  asked ;  and  Mrs. 
Elniore  hastened  to  reassure  her. 

"That's  the  way  Mr.  Elrnore  amuses  himself.  You 
know  his  history  makes  every  bit  of  the  past  fascin- 
ating to  him." 

"  Oh,  yes,  that  history !  Everybody  is  looking  out 
for  that,"  said  Lily. 

"  Is  it  possible,"  said  Elmore,  with  a  pensive  sar- 
casm in  which  an  agreeable  sense  of  flattery  lurked, 
"  that  people  still  remember  me  and  my  history  ? " 

"  Yes,  indeed ! "  cried  Miss  Mayhew.  "  Frank  Halsey 
was  talking  about  it  the  night  before  I  left.  He  couldn't 
seem  to  understand  why  I  should  be  coming  to  you  at 
Venice,  because  he  said  it  was  a  history  of  Florence 
you  were  writing.  It  is  n't,  is  it  ?  You  must  be  get- 
ting pretty  near  the  end  of  it,  Professor  Elmore.' ' 

"  I  'm  getting  pretty  near  the  beginning,"  said 
Elmore  sadly. 

"  It  must  be  hard  writing  histories ;  they  're  so  aw- 
fully hard  to  read,"  said  Lily  innocently.  "  Does  it  in- 
terest you  ? "  she  asked,  with  unaffected  compassion. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  far  more  than  it  will  ever  interest 
anybody  else." 


42  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.      , 

"  Oh,  I  don't  believe  that ! "  she  cried  sweetly, 
seizing  the  occasion  to  get  in  a  little  compliment. 

Mrs.  Elmore  sat  silent,  while  things  were  thus 
going  against  Miss  Mayhew,  and  perhaps  she  was 
then  meditating  the  stroke  by  which  she  restored  the 
balance  to  her  own  favor  as  soon  as  she  saw  her  hus- 
band alone  after  breakfast.  "  Well,  Owen,"  she  said, 
"  you  Ve  done  it  now." 

"  Done  what  ? "  he  demanded. 

"  Oh,  nothing,  perhaps  ! "  she  answered,  while  she 
got  on  her  things  for  the  walk  with  unusual  gayety  j 
and,  with  the  consciousness  of  unknown  guilt  de- 
pressing him,  he  followed  the  ladies  upon  their  errand, 
subdued,  distraught,  but  gradually  forgetting  his  sin, 
as  he  forgot  everything  but  his  history.  His  wife 
hated  to  see  him  so  miserable,  and  whispered  at  the 
shop-door  where  they  parted,  "Don't  be  troubled, 
Owen  !  I  did  n't  mean  anything." 

"  By  what  ?  " 

"  Oh,  if  you  Ve  forgotten,  never  mind ! "  she  cried ; 
and  she  and  Miss  Mayhew  disappeared  within. 

It  was  two  hours  later  when  he  next  saw  them, 
after  he  had  turned  over  the  book  he  wished  to  see, 
and  had  found  the  passage  which  would  enable  him 
to  go  on  with  his  work  for  the  rest  of  the  day  at 
home.  He  was  fitting  his  key  into  the  house-door 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  43 

when  he  happened  to  look  up  the  little  street  toward 
the  bridge  that  led  into  it,  and  there,  defined  against 
the  sky  on  the  level  of  the  bridge,  he  saw  Mrs. 
Elmore  and  Miss  Mayhew  receiving  the  adieux  of  a 
distinguished-looking  man  in  the  Austrian  uniform. 
The  officer  had  brought  his  heels  together  in  the  con- 
ventional manner,  and  with  his  cap  in  his  right 
hand,  while  his  left  rested  on  the  hilt  of  his  sword, 
and  pressed  it  down,  he  was  bowing  from  the  hips. 
Once,  twice,  and  he  was  gone. 

The  ladies  came  down  the  calle  with  rapid  steps 
and  flushed  faces,  and  Elmore  let  them  in.  His 
wife  whispered  as  she  brushed  by  his  elbow,  "  I  want 
to  speak  with  you  instantly,  Owen.  Well,  now  ! "  she 
added,  when  they  were  alone  in  their  own  room  and 
she  had  shut  the  door,  "  what  do  you  say  now  ?  " 

"  What  do  /  say  now,  Celia  ? "  retorted  Elmore, 
with  just  indignation.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  for 
you  to  say  something  —  or  nothing." 

"  Wliy,  you  brought  it  on  us." 

Elmore  merely  glanced  at  his  wife,  and  did  not 
speak,  for  this  passed  all  force  of  language. 

"  Did  n't  you  see  me  looking  at  you  when  I  spoke 
of  going  out  in  a  gondola,  at  breakfast  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  What  did  you  suppose  I  meant  ?  " 


44  A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.    , 

"  I  did  n't  know." 

"  When  I  was  trying  to  make  you  understand  that 
if  we  took  a  gondola  we  could  go  and  come  without 
being  seen  !  Lily  had  to  do  her  shopping.  But  if 
you  chose  to  run  off  on  some  interpretation  of  your 
own,  was  /  to  blame,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  No, 
indeed  !  You  won't  get  me  to  admit  it,  Owen." 

Elmore  continued  inarticulate,  but  he  made  a  low, 
miserable  sibillation  between  his  set  teeth. 

"  Such  presumption,  such  perfect  audacity  I  never 
saw  in  my  life ! "  cried  Mrs.  Elmore,  fleetly  changing 
the  subject  in  her  own  mind,  and  leaving  her  husband 
to  follow  her  as  he  could.  "It  was  outrageous!"  Her 
words  were  strong,  but  she  did  not  really  look  af- 
fronted ;  and  it  is  hard  to  tell  what  sort  of  liberty  it 
is  that  affronts  a  woman.  It  seems  to  depend  a  great 
deal  upon  the  person  who  takes  the  liberty. 

"  That  was  the  man,  I  suppose,"  said  Elmore 
quietly. 

"  Yes,  Owen,"  answered  his  wife,  with  beautiful 
candor,  "  it  was."  Seeing  that  he  remained  unaffected 
by  her  display  of  this  virtue,  she  added,  "  Don't  you 
think  he  was  very  handsome  ? " 

"  I  could  n't  judge,  at  such  a  distance." 

"  Well,  he  is  perfectly  splendid.  And  I  don't  want 
you  to  think  he  was  disrespectful  at  all.  He  was  n't. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  45 

He  was  everything  that  was  delicate  and  deferen- 
tial." 

"  Did  you  ask  him  to  walk  home  with  you  ?  " 
Mrs.  Elmore  remained  speechless  for  some  moments. 
Then  she  drew  a  long  breath,  and  said  firmly :  "  If  you 
won't  interrupt  me  with  gratuitous  insults,  Owen,  I 
will  tell  you  all  about  it,  and  then  perhaps  you  will 
be  ready  to  do  me  justice.  I  ask  nothing  more."  She 
waited  for  his  contrition,  but  proceeded  without  it,  in 
a  somewhat  meeker  strain  :  "  Lily  could  n't  get  her 
things  at  Pazienti's,  and  we  had  to  go  to  the  Merceria 
for  them.  Then  of  course  the  nearest  way  home  was 
through  St.  Mark's  Square.  I  made  Lily  go  on  the 
Florian  side,  so  as  to  avoid  the  officers  who  were  sit- 
ting at  the  Quadri,  and  we  had  got  through  the  square 
and  past  San  Moise,  as  far  as  the  Stadt  Gratz.  I  had 
never  thought  of  how  the  officers  frequented  the 
Stadt  Gratz,  but  there  we  met  a  most  magnificent 
creature,  and  I  had  just  said,  'What  a  splendid 
officer  ! '  when  she  gave  a  sort  of  stop  and  he  gave  a 
sort  of  stop,  and  bowed  very  low,  and  she  whispered, 
'  It 's  my  officer.'  I  did  n't  dream  of  his  joining  us, 
and  I  don't  think  he  did,  at  first ;  but  after  he  took  a 
second  look  at  Lily,  it  really  seemed  as  if  he  could  n't 
help  it.  He  asked  if  he  might  join  us,  and  I  did  n't 
say  anything." 


46  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 


"  Did  n't  say  anything  ! " 

"  No !  How  could  I  refuse,  in  so  many  words  ? 
And  I  was  frightened  and  confused,  any  way.  He 
asked  if  we  were  going  to  the  music  in  the  Giardini 
Pubblici ;  and  I  said  No,  that  Miss  Mayhew  was  not 
going  into  society  in  Venice,  but  was  merely  here  for 
her  health.  That 's  all  there  is  of  it.  Now  do  you 
blame  me,  Owen  ?  " 

"No." 

«i 

"  Do  you  blame  her  ? " 

"No." 

"  Well,  I  don't  see  how  he  was  to  blame." 

"  The  transaction  was  a  little  irregular,  but  it  was 
highly  creditable  to  all  parties  concerned." 

Mrs.  Elmore  grew  still  meeker  under  this  irony. 
Indignation  and  censure  she  would  have  known  how 
to  meet;  but  his  quiet  perplexed  her:  she  did  not 
know  what  might  not  be  coming.  "Lily  scarcely 
spoke  to  him,"  she  pursued,  "  and  I  was  very  cold.  I 
spoke  to  him  in  German." 

"  Is  German  a  particularly  repellent  tongue  ? " 

"  No.  But  I  was  determined  he  should  get  no  hold 
upon  us.  He  was  very  polite  and  very  respectful,  as 
I  said,  but  I  did  n't  give  him  an  atom  of  encourage- 
ment ;  I  saw  that  he  was  dying  to  be  asked  to  call, 
but  I  parted  from  him  very  stiffly." 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  47 

"  Is  it  possible  ? " 

"  Owen,  what  is  there  so  wrong  about  it  all  ?  He 's 
clearly  fascinated  with  her ;  and  as  the  matter  stood, 
he  had  no  hope  of  seeing  her  or  speaking  with  her 
except  on  the  street.  Perhaps  he  did  n't  know  it  was 
wrong,  —  or  did  n't  realize  it." 

"  I  dare  say." 

"  What  else  could  the  poor  fellow  have  done  ? 
There  he  was  !  He  had  stayed  over  a  day,  and  laid 
himself  open  to  arrest,  on  the  bare  chance  —  one  in  a 
hundred  —  of  seeing  Lily ;  and  when  he  did  see  her, 
what  was  he  to  do  ? " 

"  Obviously,  to  join  her  and  walk  home  with  her." 

"  You  are  too  bad,  Owen !  Suppose  it  had  been  one 
of  our  own  poor  boys  ?  He  looked  like  an  American." 

"  He  did  n't  behave  like  one.  One  of  '  our  own 
poor  boys,'  as  you  call  them,  would  have  been  as  far 
as  possible  from  thrusting  himself  upon  you.  He 
would  have  had  too  much  reverence  for  you,  too  much 
self-respect,  too  much  pride." 

"  What  has  pride  to  do  with  such  things,  my  dear  ? 
I  think  he  acted  very  naturally.  He  acted  upon  im- 
pulse. I  'm  sure  you  're  always  crying  out  against 
the  restraints  and  conventionalities  between  young 
people,  over  here ;  and  now,  when  a  European  does  do 
a  simple,  unaffected  thing  —  " 


48  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Elmore  made  a  gesture  of  impatience.  "  This  fellow 
has  presumed  upon  your  being  Americans  —  on  your 
ignorance  of  the  customs  here  —  to  take  a  liberty 
that  he  would  not  have  dreamed  of  taking  with  Ital- 
ian or  German  ladies.  He  has  shown  himself  no 
gentleman." 

"Now  there  you  are  very  much  mistaken,  Owen. 
That 's  what  I  thought  when  Lily  first  told  me  about 
his  speaking  to  her  in  the  cars,  and  I  was  very  much 
prejudiced  against  him ;  but  when  I  saw  him  to-day, 
I  must  say  that  I  felt  that  I  had  been  wrong.  He  is 
a  gentleman  ;  but  —  he  is  desperate." 

"  Oh,  indeed  ! " 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore,  shrinking  a  little  under 
her  husband's  sarcastic  tone.  "Why,  Owen,"  she 
pleaded,  "  can't  you  see  anything  romantic  in  it  ? " 

"  I  see  nothing  but  a  vulgar  impertinence  in  it.  I 
see  it  from  his  standpoint  as  an  adventure,  to  be 
bragged  of  and  laughed  over  at  the  mess-table  and 
the  caffe.  I  'm  going  to  put  a  stop  to  it." 

Mrs.  Elmore  looked  daunted  and  a  little  bewil- 
dered. "Well,  Owen,"  she  said,  "I  put  the  affair 
entirely  in  your  hands." 

Elmore  never  could  decide  upon  just  what  theory 
his  wife  had  acted;  h3  had  to  rest  upon  the  fact, 
already  known  to  him,  of  her  perfect  truth  and  con- 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  '    49 

scientiousness,  and  his  perception  that  even  in  a  good 
woman  the  passion  for  manoeuvring  and  intrigue  may 
approach  the  point  at  which  men  commit  forgery.  He 
now  saxw  her  quelled  and  submissive ;  but  he  was  by 
no  means  sure  that  she  looked  at  the  affair  as  he  did, 
or  that  she  voluntarily  acquiesced. 

"  All  that  I  ask  is  that  you  won't  do  anything  that 
you  '11  regret  afterward.  And  as  for  putting  a  stop 
to  it,  I  fancy  it 's  put  a  stop  to  already.  He  's  going 
back  to  Peschiera  this  afternoon,  and  that  '11  probably 
be  the  last  of  him." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Elmore,  "  if  that  is  the  last  of 
him,  I  ask  nothing  better.  I  certainly  have  no  wish 
to  take  any  steps  in  the  matter." 

But  he  went  out  of  the  house  very  unhappy  and 
greatly  perplexed.  He  thought  at  first  of  going  to 
the  Stadt  Gratz,  where  Captain  Ehrhardt  was  prob- 
ably staying  for  the  tap  of  Vienna  beer  peculiar 
to  that  hostelry,  and  of  inquiring  him  out,  and  re- 
questing him  to  discontinue  his  attentions ;  but  this 
course,  upon  reflection,  was  less  high-handed  than 
comported  with  his  present  mood,  and  he  turned 
aside  to  seek  advice  of  his  consul.  He  found  Mr. 
Hoskins  in  the  best  humor  for  backing  his  quarrel 
He  had  just  received  a  second  dispatch  from  Turin, 
stating  that  the  rumor  of  the  approaching  visit  of 


50  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

the  Alabama  was  unfounded ;  and  he  was  thus  left 
with  a  force  of  unexpended  belligerence  on  his  hands 
which  he  was  glad  to  contribute  to  the  defence  of 
Mr.  Elmore's  family  from  the  pursuit  of  this  Aus- 
trian officer. 

"  This  is  a  very  simple  affair,  Mr.  Elmore,"  —  lie  usu- 
ally said  "  Elmore,"  but  in  his  haughty  frame  of  mind, 
he  naturally  threw  something  more  of  state  into  their 
intercourse,  —  "a very  simple  affair,  fortunately.  All 
that  I  have  to  do  is  to  call  on  the  military  governor, 
and  state  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  this  fellow  will 
get  his  orders  quietly  and  definitively.  This  war  has 
sapped  our  influence  in  Europe,  —  there 's  no  doubt  of 
it;  but  I  think  it's  a  -pity  if  an  American  family  liv- 
ing in  this  city  can't  be  safe  from  molestation ;  and 
if  it  can't,  I  want  to  know  the  reason  why." 

This  language  was  very  acceptable  to  Elmore,  and 
he  thanked  the  consul.  At  the  same  time  he  felt  his 
own  resentment  moderated,  and  he  said,  "  I  'm  willing 
to  let  the  matter  rest  if  he  goes  away  this  afternoon." 

"Oh,  of  course,"  Hoskins  assented,  "if  he  clears 
out,  that's  the  end  of  it.  I'll  look  in  to-morrow, 
and  see  how  you  're  getting  along." 

"  Don't  —  don't  give  them  the  impression  that 
I've  —  profited  by  your  kindness,"  suggested  Elmore 
at  parting. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  51 

"You  haven't  yet.  I  only  hope  you  may  have 
the  chance." 

"  Thank  you ;  I  don't  think  /  do." 

Elmore  took  a  long  walk,  and  returned  home  tran- 
quillized and  clarified  as  to  the  situation.  Since  it 
could  be  terminated  without  difficulty  and  without 
scandal  in  the  way  Hoskins  had  explained,  he  was 
not  unwilling  to  see  a  certain  poetry  in  it.  He  could 
not  repress  a  degree  of  sympathy  with  the  bold  young 
fellow  who  had  overstepped  the  conventional  pro- 
prieties in  the  ardor  of  a  romantic  impulse,  and 
he  could  see  how  this  very  boldness,  while  it  had  a 
terror,  would  have  a  charm  for  a  young  girl.  There 
was  no  necessity,  except  for  the  purpose  of  holding 
Mrs.  Elmore  in  check,  to  look  at  it  in  an  ugly  light. 
Perhaps  the  officer  had  inferred  from  Lily's  innocent 
frankness  of  manner  that  this  sort  of  approach  was 
permissible  with  Americans,  and  was  not  amusing 
himself  with  the  adventure,  but  was  in  love  in  earnest. 
Elmore  could  allow  himself  this  view  of  a  case  which 
he  had  so  completely  in  his  own  hands ;  and  he  was 
sensible  of  a  sort  of  pleasure  in  the  novel  respon- 
sibility thrown  upon  him.  Few  men  at  his  age  were 
called  upon  to  stand  in  the  place  of  a  parent  to  a 
young  girl,  to  intervene  in  her  affairs,  and  to  decide 
who  was  and  who  was  not  a  proper  person  to  pretend 
to  her  acquaintance. 


52  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Feeling  so  secure  in  his  right,  he  rebelled  against 
the  restraint  he  had  proposed  to  himself,  and  at  dinner 
he  invited  the  ladies  to  go  to  the  opera  with  him. 
He  chose  to  show  himself  in  public  with  them,  and 
to  check  any  impression  that  they  were  without  due 
protection.  As  usual,  the  pit  was  full  of  officers, 
and  between  the  acts  they  all  rose,  as  usual,  and  faced 
the  boxes,  which  they  perused  through  their  lorgnettes 
tilL  the  bell  rang  for  the  curtain  to  rise.  But  Mrs. 
Elmore,  having  touched  his  arm  to  attract  his  no- 
tice, instructed  him,  by  a  slow  turning  of  her  head, 
that  Captain  Ehrhardt  was  not  there.  After  that  he 
undoubtedly  breathed  freer,  and,  in  the  relaxation 
from  his  sense  of  bravado,  he  enjoyed  the  last  acts 
of  the  opera  more  than  the  first.  Miss  May  hew 
showed  no  disappointment ;  and  she  bore  herself 
with  so  much  grace  and  dignity,  and  yet  so  evidently 
impressed  every  one  with  her  beauty,  that  he  was 
proud  of  having  her  in  charge.  He  began  himself 
to  see  that  she  was  pretty. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  53 


VI. 


THE  next  day  was  Sunday,  and  in  going  to  church 
they  missed  a  call  from  Hoskins,  whom  Elmore  felt 
bound  to  visit  the  following  morning  on  his  way  to 
the  library,  and  inform  of  his  belief  that  the  enemy 
had  quitted  Venice,  and  that  the  whole  affair  was 
probably  at  an  end.  He  was  strengthened  in  this 
opinion  by  Mrs.  Elmore's  fear  that  she  might  have 
been  colder  than  she  supposed;  she  hoped  that  she 
had  not  hurt  the  poor  young  fellow's  feelings ;  and 
now  that  he  was  gone,  and  safely  out  of  the  way, 
Elmore  hoped  so  too. 

On  his  return  from  the  library,  his  wife  met  him 
with  an  air  of  mystery  before  which  his  heart  sank. 
"  Owen,"  she  said,  "  Lily  has  a  letter." 

"  Not  bad  news  from  home,  Celia  ! " 

"  No ;  a  letter  which  she  wishes  to  show  you.  It 
has  just  come.  As  I  don't  wish  to  influence  you,  I 
would  rather  not  be  present."  Mrs.  Elmore  slipped 
out  of  the  room,  and  Miss  Mayhew  glided  gravely  in, 


54  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

holding  an  open  note  in  her  hand,  and  looking  into 
Elmore's  eyes  with  a  certain  unfathomable  candor,  of 
which  she  had  the  secret. 

"  Here,"  she  said,  "  is  a  letter  which  I  think  you 
ought  to  see  at  once,  Professor  Elmore  " ;  and  she  gave 
him  the  note  with  an  air  of  unconcern,  which  he 
afterward  recalled  without  being  able  to  determine 
whether  it  was  real  indifference  or  only  the  calm  re- 
sulting from  the  transfer  of  the  whole  responsibility 
to  him.  She  stood  looking  at  him  while  he  read : 
Miss, 

In  this  evening  I  am  just  arrived  from  Venise,  4  hours 
afterwards  I  have  had  the  fortune  to  see  you  and  to  speake 
with  you  —  and  to  favorite  me  of  your  gentil  acquaintance- 
ship at  rail-away.  I  never  forgeet  the  moments  I  have  seen 
you.  Your  pretty  and  nice  figure  had  attached  my  heard 
so  much,  that  I  deserted  in  the  hopiness  to  see  you  at  Venise. 
And  I  was  so  lukely  to  speak  with  you  cut  too  short,  and  in 
the  possibility  to  understand  all.  I  wished  to  go  also  in  this 
Sonday  to  Venise,  but  I  am  sory  that  I  cannot,  beaucause  I 
must  feeled  now  the  consequences  of  the  desertation.  Pray 
Miss  to  agree  the  assurance  of  my  lov,  and  perhaps  I  will  be 
so  lukely  to  receive  a  notice  from  you  Miss  if  I  can  hop  a 
little  (hapiness)  sympathie.  Tres  humble 

E.  vox  EHRHARDT. 

Elmore  was  not  destitute  of  the  national  sense 
of  humor ;  but  he  read  this  letter  not  only  without 
amusement  in  its  English,  but  with  intense  bitter- 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  55 

ness  and  renewed  alarm.  It  appeared  to  him  that 
the  willingness  of  the  ladies  to  put  the  affair  in  his 
hands  had  not  strongly  manifested  itself  till  it  had 
quite  passed  their  own  control,  and  had  become  a 
most  embarrassing  difficulty, — when,  in  fact,  it  was 
no  longer  a  merit  in  them  to  confide  it  to  him.  In 
the  resentment  of  that  moment,  his  suspicions  even 
accused  his  wife  of  desiring,  from  idle  curiosity  and 
sentiment,  the  accidental  meeting  which  had  resulted 
in  this  fresh  aggression. 

"  Why  did  you  show  me  this  letter  ? "  he  asked 
harshly. 

"  Mrs.  Elmore  told  me  to  do  so,"  Lily  answered. 

"Did  you  wish  me  to  see  it  ?" 

"I  don't  suppose  I  wished  you  to  see  it:  I 
thought  you  ought  to  see  it." 

Elmore  felt  himself  relenting  a  little.  "  What  do 
you  want  done  about  it  ? "  he  asked  more  gently. 

"That  is  what  I  wished  you  to  tell  me/'  replied 
the  girl. 

"  I  can 't  tell  you  what  you  wish  me  to  do,  but  I 
can  tell  you  this,  Miss  Mayhew :  this  man's  behavior 
is  totally  irregular.  He  would  not  think  of  writing 
to  an  Italian  or  German  girl  in  this  way.  If  he 
desired  to  —  to  —  pay  attention  to  her,  he  would 
write  to  her  father." 


56  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.       ' 

"  Yes,  that 's  what  Mrs.  Elmore  said.  She  said  she 
supposed  he  must  think  it  was  the  American  way." 

"  Mrs.  Elmore,"  began  her  husband ;  but  he  arrested 
himself  there,  and  said,  "  Very  well.  I  want  to  know 
what  I  am  to  do.  I  waot  your  full  and  explicit  au- 
thority before  I  act.  We  will  dismiss  the  fact  of 
irregularity.  We  will  suppose  that  it  is  fit  and  be- 
coming for  a  gentleman  who  has  twice  met  a  young 
lady  by  accident  —  or  once  by  accident,  and  once  by 
his  own  insistence  —  to  write  to  her.  Do  you  wish 
to  continue  the  correspondence  ?  " 

"No." 

Elmore  looked  into  the  eyes  which  dwelt  full  upon 
him,  and,  though  they  were  clear  as  the  windows  of 
heaven,  he  hesitated.  "  I  must  do  what  you  say,  no 
matter  what  you  mean,  you  know  ? " 

"  I  mean  what  I  say." 

"  Perhaps,"  he  suggested,  "  you  would  prefer  to  re- 
turn him  this  letter  with  a  few  lines  on  your  card." 

"  No.  I  should  like  him  to  know  that  I  have  shown 
it  to  you.  I  should  think  it  a  liberty  for  an  American 
to  write  to  me  in  that  way  after  such  a  short  ac- 
quaintance, and  I  don't  see  why  I  should  tolerate  it 
from  a  foreigner,  though  I  suppose  their  customs 
are  different." 

"  Then  you  wish  me  to  write  to  him  ? " 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  57 

"Yes." 

"  And  make  an  end  of  the  matter,  once  for  all  ? " 
"  Yes  — ." 

"  Very  well,  then."  Elmore  sat  down  at  once,  and 
wrote  :  — 

SIR, —  Miss  Mayhew  has  handed  me  your  note  of  yester- 
day, and  begs  me  to  express  her  very  great  surprise  that  you 
should  have  ventured  to  address  her.  She  desires  me  also 
to  add  that  you  will  consider  at  an  end  whatever  acquain- 
tance you  suppose  yourself  to  have  formed  with  her. 
Your  obedient  servant, 

OWEN  ELMORE. 

He  handed  the  note  to  Lily.  "  Yes,  that  will  do," 
she  said,  in  a  low,  steady  voice.  She  drew  a  deep 
breath,  and,  laying  the  letter  softly  down,  went  out  of 
the  room  into  Mrs.  Elmore's. 

Elmore  had  not  had  time  to  kindle  his  sealing-wax 
when  his  wife  appeared  swiftly  upon  the  scene. 

"  I  want  to  see  what  you  have  written,  Owen,"  she 
said. 

"  Don't  talk  to  me,  Celia,"  he  replied,  thrusting  the 
wax  into  the  candle-light.  "You  have  put  this 
affair  entirely  in  my  hands,  and  Lily  approves  of 
what  I  have  written.  I  am  sick  of  the  thing,  and 
I  don't  want  any  more  talk  about  it." 

"  I  must  see  it,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore,  with  finality, 
and  possessed  herself  of  the  note.  She  ran  it  through, 


58  A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.      , 

and  then  flung  it  on  the  table  and  dropped  into  a  chair, 
while  the  tears  started  to  her  eyes.  "  What  a  cold, 
cutting,  merciless  letter  ! "  she  cried. 

"  I  hope  he  will  think  so,"  said  Elmore,  gathering 
it  up  from  the  table,  and  sealing  it  securely  in  its 
envelope. 

"  You  're  not  going  to  send  it ! "  exclaimed  his  wife. 

"  Yes,  I  am." 

"  I  did  n  't  suppose  you  could  be  so  heartless." 

"Very  well,  then,  I  won't  send  it,"  said  Elmore. 
"  I  put  the  affair  in  your  hands.  What  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it  ?  " 

"  Nonsense ! " 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  'm  perfectly  serious.  I  don 't 
see  why  you  should  n 't  manage  the  business.  The 
gentleman  is  an  acquaintance  of  yours.  /  don't  know 
him."  Elmore  rose  and  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 
"  What  do  you  intend  to  do  ?  Do  you  like  this  clan- 
destine sort  of  thing  to  go  on  ?  I  dare  say  the  fellow 
only  wishes  to  amuse  himself  by  a  flirtation  with  a 
pretty  American.  But  the  question  is  whether  you 
wish  him  to  do  so.  I'm  willing  to  lay  his  conduct 
to  a  misunderstanding  of  our  customs,  and  to  suppose 
that  he  thinks  this  is  the  way  Americans  do.  I  take 
the  matter  at  its  best :  he  speaks  to  Lily  on  the 
train  without  an  introduction  ;  he  joins  you  in  your 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  59 

walk  without  invitation;  he  writes  to  her  without 
leave,  and  proposes  to  get  up  a  correspondence.  It 
is  all  perfectly  right  and  proper,  and  will  appear  so  to 
Lily's  friends  when  they  hear  of  it.  But  I  'm  curious 
to  know  how  you  're  going  to  manage  the  sequel.  Do 
you  wish  the  affair  to  go  on,  and  how  long  do  you 
wish  it  to  go  on  ? " 

"You  know  very  well  that  I  don't  wish  it  to  go 
on." 

"Then  you  wish  it  broken  off?" 

"  Of  course  I  do." 

"How?" 

"  I  think  there  is  such  a  thing  as  acting  kindly  and 
considerately.  I  don't  see  anything  in  Captain  Ehr- 
hardt's  conduct  that  calls  for  savage  treatment,"  said 
Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  You  would  like  to  have  him  stopped,  but  stopped 
gradually.  Well,  I  don't  wish  to  be  savage,  either, 
and  I  will  act  upon  any  suggestion  of  yours.  I  want 
Lily's  people  to  feel  that  we  managed  not  only  wisely 
but  humanely  in  checking  a  man  who  was  resolved 
to  force  his  acquaintance  upon  her." 

Mrs.  Elmore  thought  a  long  while.  Then  she  said  : 
"  Why,  of  course,  Owen,  you  're  right  about  it.  There 
is  no  other  way.  There  could  n  't  be  any  kindness  in 
checking  him  gradually.  But  I  wish,"  she  added  sor- 


60  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

rowfully, "  that  he  had  not  been  such  a  complete  goose  ; 
and  then  we  could  have  done  something  with  him." 

"  I  am  obliged  to  him  for  the  perfection  which 
you  regret,  my  dear.  If  he  had  been  less  complete, 
he  would  have  been  much  harder  to  manage." 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore,  rising,  "  I  shall  always 
say  that  he  meant  well.  But  send  the  letter." 

Her  husband  did  not  wait  for  a  second  bidding. 
He  carried  it  himself  to  the  general  post-office  that 
there  might  be  no  mistake  and  no  delay  about  it; 
and  a  man  who  believed  that  he  had  a  feeling  and 
tender  heart  experienced  a  barbarous  joy  in  the  inflic- 
tion of  this  pitiless  snub.  I  do  not  say  that  it  would 
not  have  been  different  if  he  had  trusted  at  all  in 
the  sincerity  of  Captain  Ehrhardt's  passion ;  but  he 
was  glad  to  discredit  it.  A  misgiving  to  the  other 
effect  would  have  complicated  the  matter.  But  now 
he  was  perfectly  free  to  disembarrass  himself  of  a 
trouble  which  had  so  seriously  threatened  his  peace. 
He  was  responsible  to  Miss  Mayhew's  family,  and  Mrs. 
Elmore  herself  could  not  say,  then  or  afterward,  that 
there  was  any  other  way  open  to  him.  I  will  not 
contend  that  his  motives  were  wholly  unselfish.  No 
doubt  a  sense  of  personal  annoyance,  of  offended  de- 
corum, of  wounded  respectability,  qualified  the  zeal 
for  Miss  Mayhew's  good  which  prompted  him.  He 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  61 

was  still  a  young  and  inexperienced  man,  confronted 
with  a  strange  perplexity :  he  did  the  best  he  could, 
and  I  suppose  it  was  the  best  that  could  be  done. 
At  any  rate,  he  had  no  regrets,  and  he  went  cheerfully 
about  the  work  of  interesting  Miss  Mayhew  in  the 
monuments  and  memories  of  the  city. 

Since  the  decisive  blow  had  been  struck,  the  ladies 
seemed  to  share  his  relief.  The  pursuit  of  Captain 
Ehrhardt,  while  it  flattered,  might  well  have  alarmed, 
and  the  loss  of  a  not  unpleasant  excitement  was  made 
good  by  a  sense  of  perfect  security.  Whatever  repin- 
ing Miss  Mayhew  indulged  was  secret,  or  confided 
solely  to  Mrs.  Elmore.  To  Elmore  himself  she  ap- 
peared in  better  spirits  than  at  first,  or  at  least  in  a 
more  equable  frame  of  mind.  To  be  sure,  he  did  not 
notice  very  particularly.  He  took  her  to  the  places 
and  told  her  the  things  that  she  ought  to  be  interested 
in,  and  he  conceived  a  better  opinion  of  her  mind  from 
the  quick  intelligence  with  which  she  entered  into 
his  own  feelings  in  regard  to  them,  though  he  never 
could  see  any  evidence  of  the  over-study  for  which 
she  had  been  taken  from  school.  He  made  her,  like 
Mrs.  Elmore,  the  partner  of  his  historical  researches  ; 
he  read  his  notes  to  both  of  them  now ;  and  when  his 
wife  was  prevented  from  accompanying  him,  he  went 
with  Lily  alone  to  visit  the  scenes  of  such  events  as 


62  A    FEAKFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.- 

his  researches  concerned,  and  to  fill  his  mind  with 
the  local  color  which  he  believed  would  give  life 
and  character  to  his  studies  of  the  past  They  also 
went  often  to  the  theatre ;  and,  though  Lily  could  not 
understand  the  plays,  she  professed  to  be  entertained, 
and  she  had  a  grateful  appreciation  of  all  his  efforts 
in  her  behalf  that  amply  repaid  him.  He  grew  fond 
of  her  society;  he  took  a  childish  pleasure  in  hav- 
ing people  in  the  streets  turn  and  glance  at  the 
handsome  girl  by  his  side,  of  whose  beauty  and  styl- 
ishness he  became  aware  through  the  admiration 
looked  over  the  shoulders  of  the  Austrians,  and 
openly  spoken  by  the  Italian  populace.  It  did  not 
occur  to  him  that  she  might  not  enjoy  the  growth 
of  their  acquaintance  in  equal  degree,  that  she 
fatigued  herself  with  the  appreciation  of  the  memo- 
rable and  the  beautiful,  and  that  she  found  these 
long  rambles  rather  dull.  He  was  a  man  of  little 
conversation;  and,  unless  Mrs.  Elmore  was  of  the 
company,  Miss  Mayhew  pursued  his  pleasures  for 
the  most  part  in  silence.  One  evening,  at  the  end 
of  the  week,  his  wife  asked,  "Why  do  you  always 
take  Lily  through  the  Piazza  on  the  side  farthest 
from  where  the  officers  sit  ?  Are  you  afraid  of  her 
meeting  Captain  Ehrhardt  ? " 

"  Oh,  no  !  I  consider  the  Ehrhardt  business  settled. 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  63 

But  you  know  the  Italians  never  walk  on  the  officers' 
side." 

"You  are  not  an  Italian.  What  do  you  gain 
by  flattering  them  up  ?  I  should  think  you  might 
suppose  a  young  girl  had  some  curiosity." 

"I  do ;  and  I  do  everything  I  can  to  gratify  her 
curiosity.  I  went  to  San  Pietro  di  Castello  to-day, 
to  show  her  where  the  Brides  of  Venice  were  stolen." 

"  The  oldest  and  dirtiest  part  of  the  city  !  What 
could  the  child  care  for  the  Brides  of  Venice  ?  Now 
be  reasonable,  Owen ! " 

"  It 's  a  romantic  story.  I  thought  girls  liked  such 
things,  —  about  getting  married." 

"  And  that 's  the  reason  you  took  her  yesterday  to 
show  her  the  Bucentaur  that  the  doges  wedded  the 
Adriatic  in !  Well,  what  was  your  idea  in  going 
with  her  to  the  Cemetery  of  San  Michele  ? " 

"  I  thought  she  would  be  interested.  I  had  never 
been  there  before  myself,  and  I  thought  it  would  be 
a  good  opportunity  to  verify  a  passage  I  was  at  work 
on.  We  always  show  people  the  cemetery  at  home." 

"  That  was  considerate.  And  why  did  you  go  to 
Canarregio  on  Wednesday  ? " 

"  I  wished  her  to  see  the  statue  of  Sior  Antonio 
Rioba;  you  know  it  was  the  Venetian  Pasquino  in 
the  Revolution  of  '48  —  " 


64  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  , 

"Charming!" 

"  And  the  Campo  di  Giustizia,  where  the  executions 
us 3(1  to  take  place." 

"Delightful!" 

"And  —  and  —  the  house  of  Tintoretto,"  faltered 
El  more. 

"  Delicious !  She  cares  so  much  for  Tintoretto ! 
And  you've  been  with  her  to  the  Jewish  burying- 
ground  at  the  Lido,  and  the  Spanish  synagogue  in  the 
Ghetto,  and  the  fish-market  at  the  Eialto,  and  you  've 
shown  her  the  house  of  Othello  and  the  house  of  Des- 
clemona,  and  the  prisons  in  the  ducal  palace ;  and 
three  nights  you  've  taken  us  to  the  Piazza  as  soon  as 
the  Austrian  band  stopped  playing,  and  all  the  inter- 
esting promenading  was  over,  and  those  stuffy  old 
Italians  began  to  come  to  the  cafTes.  Well,  I  can 
tell  you  that 's  no  way  to  amuse  a  young  girl.  We 
must  do  something  for  her,  or  she  will  die.  She  has 
come  here  from  a  country  where  girls  have  always 
had  the  best  time  in  the  world,  and  where  the  times 
are  livelier  now  than  they  ever  were,  with  all  this 
excitement  of  the  war  going  on ;  and  here  she  is 
dropped  down  in  the  midst  of  this  absolute  dead- 
ness  :  no  calls,  no  picnics,  no  parties,  no  dances  — 
nothing!  We  must  do  something  for  her." 

"  Shall  we  give  her  a  ball  ? "  asked  Elmore,  look- 
ing round  the  pretty  little  apartment. 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  65 

""  There 's  nothing  going  on  among  the  Italians. 
But  you  might  get  us  invited  to  the  German  Casino." 

"  I  dare  say.     But  I  will  not  do  that." 

"Then  we  could  go  to  the  Luogotenenza,  to  the 
receptions.  Mr.  Hoskins  could  call  with  us,  and 
they  would  send  us  cards." 

"  That  would  make  us  simply  odious  to  the  Vene- 
tians, and  our  house  would  be  thronged  with  officers. 
What  I  've  seen  of  them  does  n't  make  me  particularly 
anxious  for  the  honor  of  their  further  acquaintance." 

"  Well,  I  don 't  ask  you  to  do  any  of  these  things," 
said  Mrs.  Elmore,  who  had,  in  fact,  mentioned  them 
with  the  intention  of  insisting  upon  an  abated  claim. 
"  But  I  think  you  might  go  and  dine  at  one  of  tlie 
hotels  —  at  the  Danieli  —  instead  of  that  Italian  res- 
taurant; and  then  Lily  could  see  somebody  at  the 
table  d'hote,  and  not  simply  perish  of  despair." 

"I  —  I  did  n't  suppose  it  was  so  bad  as  that,"  said 
Elmore. 

"Why,  of  course,  she  hasn't  said  anything, — she's 
far  too  well-bred  for  that ;  but  I  can  tell  from  my 
own  feelings  how  she  must  suffer.  I  have  you, 
Owen,"  she  said  tenderly,  "  but  Lily  has  nobody. 
She  has  gone  through  this  Ehrhardt  business  so  well 
that  I  think  we  ought  to  do  all  we  can  to  divert  her 
mind." 

5 


66  A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.    • 

"Well,  now,  Celia,  you  see  the  difficulty  of  our 
position,  —  the  nature  of  the  responsibility  we  have 
assumed.  How  are  we  possibly,  here  in  Venice,  to 
divert  the  mind  of  a  young  lady  fresh  from  the 
parties  and  picnics  of  Patmos  ? " 

"  We  can  go  and  dine  at  the  Danieli,"  replied  Mrs. 
El  more. 

"  Very  well,  let  us  go,  then.  But  she  will  learn  no 
Italian  there.  She  will  hear  nothing  but  English 
from  the  travellers  and  bad  French  from  the  wait- 
ers ;  while  at  our  restaurant  — 

"  Pshaw  ! "  cried  Mrs.  Elmore,  "  what  does  Lily  care 
for  Italian  ?  I  'm  sure  /  never  want  to  hear  another 
word  of  it." 

At  this  desperate  admission,  Elmore  quite  gave 
way ;  he  went  to  the  Danieli  the  next  morning,  and 
arranged  to  begin  dining  there  that  day.  There  is  no 
denying  that  Miss  Mayhew  showed  an  enthusiasm  in 
prospect  of  the  change  that  even  the  sight  of  the  pil- 
lar to  which  Foscarini  was  hanged  head  downwards 
for  treason  to  the  Republic  had  not  evoked.  She 
made  herself  look  very  pretty,  and  she  was  visibly 
an  impression  at  the  table  d'  hote  when  she  sat  down 
there.  Elmore  had  found  places  opposite  an  elderly 
lady  and  quite  a  young  gentleman,  of  English  speech, 
but  of  not  very  English  effect  otherwise,  who  bowed 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  67 

to  Lily  in  acknowledgment  of  some  former  meeting. 
The  old  lady  said,  "  So  you  Ve  reached  Venice  at  last  ? 
I  'm  very  pleased,  for  your  sake,"  as  if  at  some  point 
of  the  progress  thither  she  had  been  privy  to  anxie- 
ties of  Lily  about  arriving  at  her  destination;  and, 
in  fact,  they  had  been  in  the  same  hotels  at  Marseilles 
and  Genoa.  The  young  gentleman  said  nothing,  but 
lie  looked  at  Lily  throughout  the  dinner,  and  seemed 
to  take  his  eyes  from  her  only  when  she  glanced  at 
him ;  then  he  dropped  his  gaze  to  his  neglected  plate 
and  blushed.  When  they  left  the  table,  he  made 
haste  to  join  the  Elmores  in  the  reading-room,  where 
he  contrived,  with  creditable  skill,  to  get  Lily  apart 
from  them  for  the  examination  of  an  illustrated 
newspaper,  at  which  neither  of  them  looked ;  they 
remained  chatting  and  laughing  over  it  in  entire 
irrelevancy  till  the  elderly  lady  rose  and  said,  "  Her- 
bert, Herbert !  I  am  ready  to  go  now,"  upon  which 
he  did  not  seem  at  all  so,  but  went  submissively. 

"  Who  are  those  people,  Lily  ? "  asked  Mrs.  Elmore, 
as  they  walked  towards  Florian's  for  their  after-din- 
ner coffee.  The  Austrian  band  was  playing  in  the 
centre  of  the  Piazza,  and  the  tall,  blond  German 
officers  promenaded  back  and  forth  with  dark  Hun- 
garian women,  who  looked  each  like  a  princess  of 
her  race.  The  lights  glittered  upon  them,  and  on 


68  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.    • 

the  brilliant  groups  spread  fan-wise  out  into  the 
Piazza  before  the  caffes ;  the  scene  seemed  to  shake 
and  waver  in  the  splendor,  like  something  painted. 

"  Oh,  their  name  is  Andersen,  or  something  like 
that;  and  they  're  from  Helgoland,  or  some  such  place. 
I  saw  them  first  in  Paris,  but  we  didn't  speak  till  we 
got  to  Marseilles.  That 's  his  aunt ;  they  're  English 
subjects,  someway ;  and  he  's  got  an  appointment  in 
the  civil  service  —  I  think  he  called  it  —  in  India, 
and  he  does  n't  want  to  go ;  and  I  told  him  he  ought 
to  go  to  America.  That's  what  I  tell  all  these  Eu- 
ropeans." 

"  It 's  the  best  advice  for  them,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  They  don't  seem  in  any  great  haste  to  act  upon 
it,"  laughed  Miss  Mayhew.  "  Who  was  the  red- 
faced  young  man  that  seemed  to  know  you,  and 
stared  so  ? " 

"  That 's  an  English  artist  who  is  staying  here. 
He  has  a  curious  name,  —  Eose-Black;  and  he  is 
the  most  impudent  and  pushing  man  in  the  world. 
I  would  n't  introduce  him,  because  I  saw  he  was  just 
dying  for  it." 

Miss  Mayhew  laughed,  as  she  laughed  at  every- 
thing, not  because  she  was  amused,  but  because  she 
was  happy ;  this  childlike  gayety  of  heart  was  great 
part  of  her  charm. 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  69 

Elmore  had  quieted  his  scruples  as  a  good  Ve- 
netian by  coming  inside  of  the  caffe  while  the  band 
played,  instead  of  sitting  outside  with  the  bad 
patriots;  but  he  put  the  ladies  next  the  window, 
and  so  they  were  not  altogether  sacrificed  to  his 
sympathy  with  the  dimostrazione. 


70  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 


VII. 


THE  next  morning  Elmore  was  called  from  his 
bed  —  at  no  very  early  hour,  it  must  be  owned,  but 
at  least  before  a  nine  o'clock  breakfast  —  to  see  a 
gentleman  who  was  waiting  in  the  parlor.  He  dressed 
hurriedly,  with  a  thousand  exciting  speculations  in 
his  rnind,  and  found  Mr.  Eose-Black  looking  from 
the  balcony  window.  "  You  have  a  pleasant  position 
here,"  he  said  easily,  as  he  turned  about  to  meet 
Elmore's  look  of  indignant  demand.  "  I"'ve  come 
to  ask  all  about  our  friends  the  Andersens." 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  them,"  answered 
Elmore.  "I  never  saw  them  before." 

"  Ab'h  ! "  said  the  painter.  Elmore  had  not  invited 
him  to  sit  down,  but  now  he  dropped  into  a  chair, 
with  the  air  of  asking  Elmore  to  explain  himself. 
"The  young  lady  of  your  party  seemed  to  know 
them.  How  uncommonly  pretty  all  your  American 
young  girls  are  !  But  I  'in  told  they  fade  very  soon. 
I  should  like  to  make  up  a  picnic  party  with  you 
all  for  the  Lido." 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  71 

"  Thank  you,"  replied  Elmore  stiffly.  "  Miss  May- 
hew  has  seen  the  Lido." 

"  Aoh  !  That 's  her  name.  It 's  a  pretty  name." 
He  looked  through  the  open  door  into  the  dining- 
room,  where  the  table  was  set  for  breakfast,  with  the 
usual  water-goblet  at  each  plate.  "  I  see  you  have 
beer  for  breakfast.  There's  nothing  so  nice,  you 
know.  Would  you  —  would  you  mind  giving  me  a 
glahs  ? " 

Through  an  undefined  sense  of  the  duties  of  hos- 
pitality, Elmore  was  surprised  by  this  impudence  into 
sending  out  to  the  next  caffe*  for  a  pitcher  of  beer. 
Rose-Black  poured  himself  out  one  glass  and  another 
till  he  had  emptied  the  pitcher,  conversing  affably 
meanwhile  with  his  silent  host. 

"  Why  did  n't  you  turn  him  out  of  doors  ? "  de- 
manded Mrs.  Elmore,  as  soon  as  the  painter's  depart- 
ure allowed  her  to  slip  from  the  closed  door  behind 
which  she  had  been  imprisoned  in  her  room. 

"  I  did  everything  but  that,"  replied  her  husband, 
whom  this  interview  had  saddened  more  than  it  had 
angered. 

"  You  sent  out  for  beer  for  him  ! " 

"I  didn't  know  but  it  might  make  him  sick. 
Eeally,  the  thing  is  incredible.  I  think  the  man  is 
cracked." 


72  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  He  is  an  Englishman,  and  he  thinks  he  can 
take  any  kind  of  liberty  with  us  because  we  are 
Americans." 

"  That  seems  to  be  the  prevalent  impression  among 
all  the  European  nationalities,"  said  Elmore.  "  Let 's 
drop  him  for  the  present,  and  try  to  be  more  brutal 
in  the  future." 

Mrs.  Elmore,  so  far  from  dropping  him,  turned  to 
Lily,  who  entered  at  that  moment,  and  recounted 
the  extraordinary  adventure  of  the  morning,  which 
scarcely  needed  the  embellishment  of  her  fancy ;  it 
was  not  really  a  gallon  of  beer,  but  a  quart,  that  Mr. 
Rose-Black  had  drunk.  She  enlarged  upon  previous 
aggressions  of  .his,  and  said  finally  that  they  had  to 
thank  Mr.  Ferris  for  his  acquaintance. 

"Ferris  couldn't  help  himself,"  said  Elmore.  "He 
apologized  to  me  afterward.  The  man  got  him  into 
a  corner.  But  he  warned  us  about  him  as  soon  he 
could.  And  Rose-Black  would  have  made  our  ac- 
quaintance, any  way.  I  believe  he  's  crazy." 

"  I  don't  see  how  that  helps  the  matter." 

"  It  helps  to  explain  it,"  concluded  Elmore,  with 
a  sigh.  "We  can't  refer  everything  to  our  being 
American  lambs,  and  his  being  a  ravening  European 
wolf." 

"Of  course  he  came  round  to  find  out  about  Lily," 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  73 

said  Mrs.  Elmore.  "  The  Andersens  were  a  mere 
blind." 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  Elmore  ! "  cried  Lily  in  deprecation. 

The  bell  jangled.  "  That  is  the  postman,"  said 
Mrs.  Elmore. 

There  was  a  home-letter  for  Lily,  and  one  from 
Lily's  sister  enclosed  to  Mrs.  Elmore.  The  ladies 
rent  them  open,  and  lost  themselves  in  the  cross- 
written  pages ;  and  neither  of  them  saw  the  dismay 
with  which  Elmore  looked  at  the  handwriting  of  the 
envelope  addressed  to  him.  His  wife  vaguely  knew 
that  he  had  a  letter,  and  meant  to  ask  him  for  it 
as  soon  as  she  should  have  finished  her  own.  When 
she  glanced  at  him  again,  he  was  staring  at  the  smil- 
ing face  of  Miss  Mayhew,  as  she  read  her  letter,  with 
the  wild  regard  of  one  who  sees  another  in  mortal 
peril,  and  can  do  nothing  to  avert  the  coming  doom, 
but  must  dumbly  await  the  catastrophe. 

"What  is  it,  Owen?"  asked  his  wife  in  a  low 
voice. 

He  started  from  his  trance,  and  struggled  to  an- 
swer quietly.  "  I  Ve  a  letter  here  which  I  suppose 
I  'd  better  show  to  you  first." 

They  rose  and  went  into  the  next  room,  Miss 
Mayhew  following  them  with  a  bright,  absent  look, 
and  then  dropping  her  eyes  again  to  her  letter. 


74  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Elmore  put  the  note  he  had  received  into  his  wife's 
hands  without  a  word. 

SIR,  —  My  position  permitted  me  to  take  a  woman.  I 
am  a  soldier,  but  I  am  an  engineer  —  operateous,  and  I  can 
exercise  wherever  my  profession  in  the  civil  life.  •  I  have 
seen  Miss  Mayhew,  and  I  have  great  sympathie  for  she.  I 
think  I  will  be  lukely  with  her,  if  Miss  Mayhew  would  be  of 
the  same  intention  of  me. 

If  you  believe,  Sir,  that  my  open  and  realy  proposition 
will  not  offendere  Miss  Mayhew,  pray  to  handed  to  her  this 
note.     Pray  sir  to  excuse  me  the  liberty  to  fatigue  you,  and 
to  go  over  with  silence  if  you  would  be  of  another  intention. 
Your  obedient  servant, 

E.  VON  EHRHARDT. 

Mrs.  Elmore  folded  the  letter  carefully  up  and  re- 
turned it  to  her  husband.  If  he  had  perhaps  dreaded 
some  triumphant  outburst  from  her,  he  ought  to  have 
been  content  with  the  thoroughly  daunted  look  which 
she  lifted  to  his,  and  the  silence  in  which  she  suffered 
him  to  do  justice  to  the  writer. 

"This  is  the  letter  of  a  gentleman,  Celia,"  he 
said. 

"  Yes,"  she  responded  faintly. 

"  It  puts  another  complexion  on  the  affair  en- 
tirely." 

"  Yes.  Why  did  he  wait  a  whole  week  ? "  she 
added. 

"  It  is  a  serious  matter  with  him.     He  had  a  right 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  75 

to  take  time  for  thinking  it  over."  Elmore  looked  at 
the  date  of  the  Peschiera  postmark,  and  then  at  that  of 
Venice  on  the  back  of  the  envelope.  "  No,  he  wrote 
at  once.  This  has  been  kept  in  the  Venetian  office, 
and  probably  read  there  by  the  authorities." 

His  wife  did  not  heed  the  conjecture.  "  He  began 
all  wrong,"  she  grieved.  "  Why  could  n't  he  have 
behaved  sensibly?" 

"  We  must  look  at  it  from  another  point  of  view 
now,"  replied  Elmore.  "  He  has  repaired  his  error 
by  this  letter." 

"  No,  no  ;  he  has  n't." 

"  The  question  is  now  what  to  do  about  the  changed 
situation.  This  is  an  offer  of  marriage.  It  comes  ill 
the  proper  way.  It 's  a  very  sincere  and  manly  letter. 
The  man  has  counted  the  whole  cost :  he  's  ready  to 
leave  the  army  and  go  to  America,  if  she  says  so. 
He  's  in  love.  How  can  she  refuse  him  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  she  is  n't  in  love  with  him,"  said  Mrs. 
Elmore. 

"Oh!  That's  true.  I  hadn't  thought  of  that. 
Then  it 's  very  simple." 

"  But  I  don't  know  that  she  is  n't,"  murmured  Mrs. 
Elmore. 

"Well,  ask  her." 

"  How  could  she  tell  ? " 


76  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  How  could  she  tell  ?" 

"  Yes.  Do  you  suppose  a  child  like  that  can  know 
her  own  mind  in  an  instant  ? " 

"  I  should  think  she  could." 

"  Well,  she  could  n't.  She  liked  the  excitement,  — 
the  romanticality  of  it ;  but  she  does  n't  know  any 
more  than  you  or  I  whether  she  cares  for  him.  I 
don't  suppose  marriage  with  anybody  has  ever  seri- 
ously entered  her  head  yet." 

"  It  will  have  to  do  so  now,"  said  Elmore  firmly. 
"  There 's  no  help  for  it." 

"  I  think  the  American  plan  is  much  better,"  pouted 
Mrs.  Elmore.  "  It 's  horrid  to  know  that  a  man 's  in 
love  with  you,  and  wants  to  marry  you,  from  the  very 
start.  Of  course  it  makes  you  hate  him." 

"  I  dare  say  the  American  plan  is  better  in  this  as 
in  most  other  things.  But  we  can't  discuss  abstrac- 
tions, Celia.  We  must  come  down  to  business.  What 
are  we  to  do  ? " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  We  must  submit  the  question  to  her.'* 

"  To  that  innocent,  unsuspecting  little  thing  ? 
Never  ! "  cried  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  Then  we  must  decide  it,  as  he  seems  to  expect 
we  may,  without  reference  to  her,"  said  her  hus- 
band. 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  77 

"  No,  that  won't  do.  Let  me  think."  Mrs.  Elmore 
thought  to  so  little  purpose  that  she  left  the  word 
to  her  husband  again. 

"  You  see  we  must  lay  the  matter  before  her." 

"  Could  n't  —  could  n't  we  let  him  come  to  see  us 
awhile  ?  Could  n't  we  explain  our  ways  to  him,  and 
allow  him  to  pay  her  attentions  without  letting  her 
know  about  this  letter  ?  " 

"  I  'in  afraid  he  would  n't  understand,  —  that  we 
could  n't  make  it  clear  to  him,"  said  Elmore.  "  If  we 
invited  him  to  the  house  he  would  consider  it  as  an 
acceptance.  He  wants  a  categorical  answer,  and  he 
has  a  right  to  it.  It  would  be  no  kindness  to  a  mail 
with  his  ideas  to  take  him  on  probation.  He  has 
behaved  honorably,  and  we  're  bound  to  consider  him." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  he  's  done  anything  so  very 
great,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore,  with  that  disposition  we  all 
have  to  disparage  those  who  put  us  in  difficulties. 

"  He  's  done  everything  he  could  do,"  said  Elmore. 
"  Shall  I  speak  to  Miss  Mayhew  ? " 

"  No,  you  had  better  let  me,"  sighed  his  wife.  "  I 
suppose  we  must.  But  I  think  it 's  horrid  !  Every- 
thing could  have  gone  on  so  nicely  if  he  had  n't 
been  so  impatient  from  the  beginning.  Of  course  she 
won't  have  him  now.  She  will  be  scared,  and  that 
will  be  the  end  of  it." 


78  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.' 

"I  think  you  ought  to  be  just  to  him,  Celia.  I 
can  't  help  feeling  for  him.  He  has  thrown  himself 
upon  our  mercy,  and  he  has  a  claim  to  right  and 
thoughtful  treatment." 

"  She  won't  have  anything  to  do  with  him.  You  '11 
see." 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad  of  that,"  Elmore  began. 

"  Wliy  should  you  be  glad  of  it  ? "  demanded  his 
wife. 

He  laughed.  "  I  think  I  can  safely  leave  his  case 
in  your  hands.  Don't  go  to  the  other  extreme.  If 
she  married  a  German,  he  would  let  her  black  his 
boots,  —  like  that  general  in  Munich." 

"  Who  is  talking  of  marriage  ? "  retorted  Mrs. 
Elmore. 

"  Captain  Ehrhardt  and  I.  That 's  what  it  comes 
to ;  and  it  can't  come  to  anything  else.  I  like  his 
courage  in  writing  English,  and  it's  wonderful  how 
he  hammers  his  meaning  into  it.  '  Lukely '  is  n't 
bad,  is  it  ?  And  '  my  position  permitted  me  to  take 
a  woman  '  —  I  suppose  he  means  that  he  has  money 
enough  to  marry  on — is  delicious.  Upon  my  word, 
I  have  a  good  deal  of  sympathie  for  he  ! " 

"  For  shame,  Owen  !  It 's  wicked  to  make  fun  of 
his  English." 

kAMy  dear,  I  respect  him  for  writing  in  English. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  79 

The  whole  letter  is  touchingly  brave  and  fine.  Con- 
found him  !  I  wish  I  had  never  heard  of  him.  What 
does  he  corne  "bothering  across  my  path  for  ? " 

"  Oh,  don't  feel  that  way  about  it,  Owen  ! "  cried 
his  wife.  "  It 's  cruel." 

"  I  don't.  I  wish  to  treat  him  in  the  most  generous 
manner ;  after  all,  it  is  n't  his  fault.  But  you  must 
allow,  Celia,  that  it 's  very  annoying  and  extremely 
perplexing.  We  can't  make  up  Miss  Mayhew's  mind 
for  her.  Even  if  we  found  out  that  she  liked  him,  it 
would  be  only  the  beginning  of  our  troubles.  We  've 
no  right  to  give  her  away  in  marriage,  or  let  her  in- 
volve her  affections  here.  But  be  judicious,  Celia." 

"  It 's  easy  enough  to  say  that  ! " 

"I'll  be  back  in  an  hour,"  said  Elmore.  "I'm 
going  to  the  Square.  We  must  n't  lose  time." 

As  he  passed  out  through  the  breakfast-room,  Lily 
was  sitting  by  the  window  with  her  letter  in  her  lap, 
and  a  happy  smile  on  her  lips.  When  he  came  back 
she  happened  to  be  seated  in  the  same  place ;  she 
still  had  a  letter  in  her  lap,  but  she  was  smiling  no 
longer ;  her  face  was  turned  from  him  as  he  entered, 
and  he  imagined  a  wistful  droop  in  that  corner  of 
her  mouth  which  showed  on  her  profile. 

But  she  rose  very  promptly,  and  with  a  heightened 
color  said,  "  I  am  sorry  to  trouble  you  to  answer  an- 


80  A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  ' 

other  letter  for  me,  Professor  Elmore.  I  manage  my 
correspondence  at  home  myself,  but  here  it  seems  to 
be  different." 

"  It  need  n't  be  different  here,  Lily,"  said  Elmore 
kindly.  "  You  can  answer  all  the  letters  you  re- 
ceive in  just  the  way  you  like.  We  don't  doubt 
your  discretion  in  the  least.  We  will  abide  by 
any  decision  of  yours,  on  any  point  that  concerns 
yourself." 

"  Thank  you,"  replied  the  girl ;  "  but  in  this  case  I 
think  you  had  better  write."  She  kept  slipping  Ehr- 
hardt's  letter  up  and  down  between  her  thumb  and 
finger  against  the  palm  of  her  left  hand,  and  delayed 
giving  it  to  him,  as  if  she  wished  him  to  say  some- 
thing first. 

"  I  suppose  you  and  Celia  have  talked  the  matter 
over  ? " 

"Yes." 

"  And  I  hope  you  have  determined  upon  the  course 
you  are  going  to  take,  quite  uninfluenced  ?  " 

"  Oh,  quite  so." 

"  I  feel  bound  to  tell  you,"  said  Elmore,  "  that  this 
gentleman  has  now  done  everything  that  we  could 
expect  of  him,  and  has  fully  atoned  for  any  error  he 
committed  in  making  your  acquaintance." 

"Yes,  I   understand  that.     Mrs.   Elmore   thought 


A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  81 

he  might  have  written  because  he  saw  he  had  gone 
too  far,  and  could  n't  think  of  any  other  way  out 
of  it." 

"  That  occurred  to  me,  too,  though  I  did  n't  mention 
it.  But  we  're  bound  to  take  the  letter  on  its  face, 
and  that 's  open  and  honorable.  Have  you  made  up 
your  mind  ? " 

"Yes." 

"  Do  you  wish  for  delay  ?  There  is  no  reason  for 
haste." 

"  There 's  no  reason  for  delay,  either,"  said  the 
girl.  Yet  she  did  not  give  up  the  letter,  or  show 
any  signs  of  intending  to  terminate  the  interview.  "  If 
I  had  had  more  experience,  I  should  know  how  to  act 
better;  but  I  must  do  the  best  I  can,  without  the 
experience.  I  think  that  even  in  a  case  like  this  we 
should  try  to  do  right,  don't  you  ? " 

"  Yes,  above  all  other  cases,"  said  Elmore,  with  a 
laugh. 

She  flushed  in  recognition  of  her  absurdity.  "I 
mean  that  we  ought  n't  to  let  our  feelings  carry  us 
away.  I  saw  so  many  girls  carried  away  by  their 
feelings,  when  the  first  regiments  went  off,  that  I  got 
a  horror  of  it.  I  think  it's  wicked:  it  deceives  both  ; 
and  then  you  don't  know  how  to  break  the  engage- 
ment afterward." 


82  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  ' 

"You're  quite  right,  Lily,"  said  Elmore,  with  a 
rising  respect  for  the  girl. 

"  Professor  Elmore,  can  you  believe  that,  with  all 
the  attentions  I  've  had,  I  've  never  seriously  thought 
of  getting  married  as  the  end  of  it  all  ? "  she  asked, 
looking  him  freely  in  the  eyes. 

"  I  can 't  understand  it,  —  no  man  could,  I  sup- 
pose, —  but  I  do  believe  it.  Mrs.  Elmore  has  often 
told  me  the  same  thing." 

"  And  this  —  letter  —  it  —  means  marriage." 
"  That  and  nothing  else.     The  man  who  wrote  it 
would  consider  himself  cruelly  wronged  if  you  ac- 
cepted his  attentions  without  the  distinct  purpose  of 
marrying  him." 

She  drew  a  deep  breath.  "  I  shall  have  to  ask  you 
to  write  a  refusal  for  me."  But  still  she  did  not  give 
him  the  letter. 

"  Have  you  made  up  your  mind  to  that  ?  " 
"I  can't  make  up  my  mind  to  anything  else." 
Elmore  walked  unhappily  back  and  forth  across 
the  room.     "  I  have  seen  something  of  international 
marriages  since  I  Ve  been  in  Europe,"  he  said.  "  Some- 
times they  succeed ;  but  generally  they  're  wretched 
failures.    The  barriers  of  different  race,  language,  edu- 
cation,  religion,  —  they  're    terrible    barriers.       It 's 
very  hard  for  a  man  and  woman  to  understand  each 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  83 

other  at  the  best ;  with  these  differences  added,  it 's 
almost  a  hopeless  case." 

"  Yes  ;  that 's  what  Mrs.  Elmore  said." 

"  And  suppose  you  were  married  to  an  Austrian 
officer  stationed  in  Italy.  You  would  have  no  society 
outside  of  the  garrison.  Every  other  human  creature 
that  looked  at  you  would  hate  you.  And  if  you  were 
ordered  to  some  of  those  half  barbaric  principalities, 
—  Moldavia  or  Wallachia,  or  into  Hungary  or  Bohe- 
mia,—  everywhere  your  husband  would  be  an  instru- 
ment for  the  suppression  of  an  alien  or  disaffected 
population.  What  a  fate  for  an  American  girl !  " 

"  If  he  were  good,"  said  the  girl,  replying  in  the 
abstract,  "  she  need  n't  care." 

"  If  he  were  good,  you  need  n't  care.  No.  And  he 
might  leave  the  Austrian  service,  and  go  with  you  to 
America,  as  he  hints.  What  could  he  do  there  ?  He 
might  get  an  appointment  in  our  army,  though  that 's 
not  so  easy  now  ;  or  he  might  go  to  Patmos,  and  live 
upon  your  friends  till  he  found  something  to  do  in 
civil  life." 

Lily  began  a  laugh.  "Why,  Professor  Elmore,  / 
don't  want  to  marry  him !  What  in  the  world  are  you 
arguing  with  me  for  ? " 

"  Perhaps  to  convince  myself.  I  feel  that  I  ought  n't 
to  let  these  considerations  weigh  as  a  feather  in  the 


84  A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.   , 

balance  if  you  are  at  all — at  all — aliem  !  excuse  me  ! 
—  attached  to  him.  That,  of  course,  outweighs  every- 
thing else." 

"  But  I  'm  not  !  "  cried  the  girl.  "  How  could  I  be  ? 
I  've  only  met  him  twice.  It  would  be  perfectly 
ridiculous.  I  know  I  'm  not.  I  ought  to  know  that 
if  I  know  anything." 

Years  afterward  it  occurred  to  Elmore,  when  he 
awoke  one  night,  and  his  mind  without  any  reason 
flew  back  to  this  period  in  Venice,  that  she  might 
have  been  referring  the  point  to  him  for  decision. 
But  now  it  only  seemed  to  him  that  she  was  adding 
force  to  her  denial ;  arid  he  observed  nothing  hyster- 
ical in  the  little  laugh  she  gave. 

"  Well,  then,  we  can't  have  it  over  too  soon.  I  '11 
write  now,  if  you  will  give  me  his  letter." 

She  put  it  behind  her.  "Professor  Elmore,"  she 
said,  "I  am  not  going  to  have  you  think  that  he 
ever  behaved  •in  the  least  presumingly.  And  what- 
ever you  think  of  me,  I  must  tell  you  that  I  suppose 
I  talked  very  freely  with  him, — just  as  freely,  as  I 
should  with  an  American.  I  did  n't  know  any  better. 
He  was  very  interesting,  and  I  was  homesick,  and  so 
glad  to  see  any  one  who  could  speak  English.  I 
suppose  I  was  a  goose;  but  I  felt  very  lar  away 
from  all  my  friends,  and  I  was  grateful  for  his 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  85 

kindness.  Even  if  he  had  never  written  this  last 
letter,  I  should  always  have  said  that  he  was  a  true 
gentleman." 

"Well?" 

"That  is  all.  I  can't  have  him  treated  as  if  he 
were  an  adventurer." 

"  You  want  him  dismissed  ? " 

"  Yes." 

"A  man  can't  distinguish  as  to  the  terms  of  a 
dismissal.  They  're  always  insolent,  —  more  insolent 
than  ever  if  you  try  to  make  them  kindly.  I  should 
merely  make  this  as  short  and  sharp  as  possible.'" 

"  Yes,"  she  said  breathlessly,  as  if  the  idea  affected 
her  respiration. 

"  But  I  will  show  it  to  you,  and  I  won't  send  it 
without  your  approval." 

"  Thank  you.  But  I  shall  not  want  to  see  it.  I  'd 
rather  not."  She  was  going  out  of  the  room. 

"  Will  you  leave  me  his  letter  ?  You  can  have  it 
again." 

She  turned  red  in  giving  it  him.  "  I  forgot.  Why, 
it's  written  to  you,  anyway  !  "  she  cried,  with  a  laugh, 
and  put  the  letter  on  the  table. 

The  two  doors  opened  and  closed :  one  excluded 
Lily,  and  the  other  admitted  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  Owen,  I   approve,  of  all   you  said,  except  that 


86  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

about  the  form  of  the  refusal.  /  will  read  what  you 
say.  I  intend  that  it  shall  be  made  kindly." 

"  Very  well.  I  '11  copy  a  letter  of  yours,  or  write 
from  your  dictation." 

"  No ;  you  write  it,  and  I  '11  criticise  it." 

"  Oh,  you  talk  as  if  I  were  eager  to  write  the  letter  ! 
Can't  you  imagine  it 's  being  a  very  painful  thing  to 
me  ? "  he  demanded. 

"  It  did  n't  seem  to  be  so  before." 

"Why,  the  situation  wasn't  the  same  before  he 
wrote  this  letter!" 

"  I  don't  see  how.  He  was  as  much  in  earnest 
then  as  he  is  now,  and  you  had  no  pity  for  him." 

"  Oh,  my  goodness  ! "  cried  Elmore  desperately. 
"Don't  you  see  the  difference?  He  hadn't  given 
any  proof  before  "  — 

"  Oh,  proof,  proof !  You  men  are  always  wanting 
proof !  What  better  proof  could  he  have  given  than 
the  way  he  followed  her  about  ?  Proof,  indeed  !  I 
suppose  you'd  like  to  have  Lily  prove  that  she 
does  n't  care  for  him  !  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Elmore  sadly,  "  I  should  like  very  much 
to  have  her  prove  it." 

"  Well,  you  won't  get  her  to.  What  makes  you 
think  she  does  ?  " 

"  I  don't.     Do  you  ?  " 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  87 

"  N-o,"  answered  Mrs.  Elmore  reluctantly. 

"Celia,  Celia,  you  will  drive  me  mad  if  you  go 
on  in  this  way  !  The  girl  has  told  me,  over  and  over, 
that  she  wishes  him  dismissed.  Why  do  you  think 
she  does  n't  ? " 

"  I  don't.  Who  hinted  such  a  thing  ?  But  I  don't 
want  you  to  enjoy  doing  it." 

"  Enjoy  it  ?  So  you  think  I  enjoy  it !  What  do 
you  suppose  I'm  made  of?  Perhaps  you  think  I 
enjoyed  catechizing  the  child  about  her  feelings 
toward  him  ?  Perhaps  you  think  I  enjoy  the  whole 
confounded  affair?  Well,  I  give  it  up.  I  will  let 
it  go.  If  I  can't  have  your  full  and  hearty  support, 
I  '11  let  it  go.  I  '11  do  nothing  about  it." 

He  threw  Ehrhardt's  letter  on  the  table,  and  went 
and  sat  down  by  the  window.  His  wife  took  the 
letter  up  and  read  it  over.  "  Why,  you  see  he  asks 
you  to  pass  it  over  in  silence  if  you  don't  consent." 

"  Does  he  ? "  asked  Elmore.  "  I  had  n't  noticed  that." 

"  Perhaps  you  'd  better  read  some  of  your  letters, 
Owen,  before  you  answer  them ! " 

"  Really,  I  had  forgotten.  I  had  forgotten  that  the 
letter  was  written  to  me  at  all.  I  thought  it  was  to 
Lily,  and  she  had  got  to  thinking  so  too.  Well,  then, 
I  won't  do  anything  about  it."  He  drew  a  breath  of 
relief. 


88  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.' 

"Perhaps,"  suggested  his  wife,  "he  asked  that  so 
as  to  leave  himself  some  hope  if  he  should  happen 
to  meet  her  again." 

"  And  we  don't  wish  him  to  have  any  hope." 

Mrs.  Elmore  was  silent. 

"  Celia,"  cried  her  husband  indignantly,  "  I  can't 
have  you  playing  fast  and  loose  with  me  in  this 
matter ! " 

"  I  suppose  I  may  have  time  to  think  ? "  she  re- 
torted. 

"  Yes,  if  you  will  tell  me  what  you  do  think  ;  but 
that  I  must  know.  It 's  a  thing  too  vital  in  its  con- 
sequences for  me  to  act  without  your  full  concur- 
rence. I  won't  take  another  step  in  it  till  I  know 
just  how  far  you  have  gone  with  me.  If  I  may  judge 
of  what  this  man's  influence  upon  Lily  would  be  by 
the  fact  that  he  has  brought  us  to  the  verge  of  the 
only  real  quarrel  we  've  ever  had  "  — 

"  Who  's  quarrelling,  Owen  ? "  asked  Mrs.  Elmore 
meekly.  "  I  'm  not." 

"  Well,  well !  we  won't  dispute  about  that.  I  want 
to  know  whether  you  thought  with  me  that  it  was 
improper  for  him  to  address  her  in  the  car  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  And  still  more  improper  for  him  to  join  you  in 
the  street  ? " 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  89 

"  Yes.     But  he  was  very  gentlemanly." 

"No  matter  about  that.  You  were  just  as  much 
annoyed  as  I  was  by  his  letter  to  her  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  about  annoyed.     It  scared  me." 

"  Very  well.  And  you  approved  of  my  answering 
it  as  I  did  ? " 

"  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  thought  you  were 
acting  conscientiously.  I  '11  say  that  much." 

"You've  got  to  say  more.  You  have  got  to  say 
you  approved  of  it ;  for  you  know  you  did." 

"  Oh  —  approved  of  it  ?     Yes ! " 

"  That 's  all  I  want.  Now  I  agree  with  you  that 
if  we  pass  this  letter  in  silence,  it  will  leave  him  with 
some  hope.  You  agree  with  me  that  in  a  marriage 
between  an  American  girl  and  an  Austrian  officer 
the  chances  would  be  ninety-nine  to  a  hundred 
against  her  happiness  at  the  best." 

"There  are  a  great  many  unhappy  marriages  at 
home,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore  impartially. 

'•'  That  is  n't  the  point,  Celia,  and  you  know  it. 
The  point  is  whether  you  believe  the  chances  are  for 
or  against  her  in  such  a  marriage.  Do  you  ? " 

"Do  I  what?" 

"  Agree  with  me  ? " 

"Yes;  but  I  say  they  might  be  very  happy.  I 
shall  always  say  that." 


90  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  ' 

Elmore  flung  up  his  hands  in  despair.  "Well, 
then,  say  what  shall  be  done  now." 

This  was  perhaps  just  what  Mrs.  Elmore  did  not 
choose  to  say.  She  was  silent  a  long  time,  —  so 
long  that  Elmore  said,  "  But  there  's  really  no  haste 
about  it,"  and  took  some  notes  of  his  history  out  of 
a  drawer,  and  began  to  look  them  over,  with  his  back 
turned  to  her. 

"  I  never  knew  anything  so  heartless  ! "  she  cried. 
"  Owen,  this  must  be  attended  to  at  once  !  I  can't 
have  it  hanging  over  me  any  longer.  It  will  make 
me  sick." 

He  turned  abruptly  round,  and,  seating  himself  at 
the  table,  wrote  a  note,  which  he  pushed  across  to 
her.  It  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  Captain  von 
Ehrhardt's  letter,  and  expressed  Miss  Mayhew's  feel- 
ing that  there  was  nothing  in  it  to  change  her  wish 
that  the  acquaintance  should  cease.  In  after  years, 
the  terms  of  this  note  did  not  always  appear  to  El- 
more wisely  chosen  or  humanely  considered ;  but  he 
stood  at  bay,  and  he  struck  mercilessly.  In  spite  of 
the  explicit  concurrence  of  both  Miss  Mayhew  and 
his  wife,  he  felt  as  if  they  were  throwing  wholly 
upon  him  a  responsibility  whose  fearfulness  he  did 
not  then  realize.  Even  in  his  wife's  "  Send  it ! "  he 
was  aware  of  a  subtile  reservation  on  her  part. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  91 


VIII. 

MRS.  ELMORE  and  Lily  again  rose  buoyantly  from 
the  conclusive  event,  but  he  succumbed  to  it.  For 
the  delicate  and  fastidious  invalid,  keeping  his  health 
evenly  from  day  to  day  upon  the  condition  of  a  free  and 
peaceful  mind,  the  strain  had  been  too  much.  He 
had  a  bad  night,  and  the  next  day  a  gastric  trouble 
declared  itself  which  kept  him  in  bed  half  the  week, 
and  left  him  very  weak  and  tremulous.  His  friends 
did  not  forget  him  during  this  time.  Hoskins  came 
regularly  to  see  him,  and  supplied  his  place  at  the 
table  d'h8te  of  the  Danieli,  going  to  and  fro  with  the 
ladies,  and  efficiently  protecting  them  from  the  depre- 
dations of  the  Austrian  soldiery.  From  Mr.  Eose- 
Black  he  could  not  protect  them  ;  and  both  the  ladies 
amused  Elmore  with  a  dramatization  of  how  the  Eng- 
lishman had  boldly  outwitted  them,  and  trampled  all 
their  finessing  under  foot,  by  simply  walking  up  to 
them  in  the  reading-room,  and  saying,  "  This  is  Miss 
Mayhew,  I  suppose,"  and  putting  himself  at  once  on 


92  A  FEAKFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  ' 

the  footing  of  an  old  family  friend.  They  read  to 
Elmore,  and  they  put  his  papers  in  order,  so  that 
he  did  not  know  where  to  find  anything  when  he 
got  well;  but  they  always  came  home  from  the 
hotel  with  some  lively  gossip,  and  this  he  liked. 
They  professed  to  recognize  an  anxiety  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Andersen's  aunt  that  his  mind  should  not  be 
diverted  from  the  civil  service  in  India  by  thoughts 
of  young  American  ladies ;  but  she  sent  some  deli- 
cacies to  Elmore,  and  one  day  she  even  came  to  call 
with  her  nephew,  in  extreme  reluctance  and  anxiety 
as  they  pretended  to  him. 

The  next  afternoon  the  young  man  called  alone, 
and  Elmore,  who  Was  now  on  foot,  received  him  in  the 
parlor,  before  the  ladies  came  in.  Mr.  Andersen  had 
a  bunch  of  flowers  in  one  hand,  and  a  small  wooden 
box  containing  a  little  turtle  on  a  salad-leaf  in  the 
other;  the  poor  animals  are  sold  in  the  Piazza  at 
Venice  for  souvenirs  of  the  city,  and  people  often 
carry  them  away.  Elmore  took  the  offerings  simply, 
as  he  took  everything  in  life,  and  interpreted  them  as 
an  expression,  however  odd,  of  Mr.  Andersen's  sym- 
pathy with  his  recent  sufferings,  of  which  he  gave 
him  some  account;  but  he  practised  a  decent  self- 
denial,  here,  and  they  were  already  talking  of  the 
weather  when  the  ladies  appeared.  He  hastened  to 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  93 

exhibit  the  tokens  of  Mr.  Andersen's  kind  remem- 
brance, and  was  mystified  by  the  young  man's  con- 
fusion, and  the  impatient,  almost  contemptuous, 
air  with  which  his  wife  listened  to  him.  Hoskins 
came  in  at  that  moment  to  ask  about  Elmore's 
health,  and  showed  the  hostile  civility  to  Andersen 
which  young  men  use  toward  each  other  in  the 
presence  of  ladies;  and  then,  seeing  that  the  latter 
had  secured  the  place  at  Miss  Mayhew's  side  on  the 
sofa,  he  limped  to  the  easy  chair  near  Mrs.  Elmore, 
and  fell  into  talk  with  her  about  Rose-Black's 
pictures,  which  he  had  just  seen.  They  were  based 
upon  an  endeavor  to  trace  the  moral  principles  be- 
lieved by  Mr.  Ruskin  to  underlie  Venetian  art,  and 
they  were  very  queer,  so  Hoskins  said ;  he  roughly 
sketched  an  idea  of  some  of  them  on  a  block  he  took 
from  his  pocket. 

Mr.  Andersen  and  Lily  went  out  upon  one  of 
the  high-railed  balconies  that  overhung  the  canal, 
and  stood  there,  with  their  backs  to  the  others.  She 
seemed  to  be  listening,  with  averted  face,  while  he, 
with  his  cheek  leaning  upon  one  hand  and  his 
elbow  resting  on  the  balcony  rail,  kept  a  pensive 
attitude  after  they  had  apparently  ceased  to  speak. 
Something  in  their  pose  struck  the  sculptor's  fancy, 
and  he  made  a  hasty  sketch  of  them,  and  was  showing 


94  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.' 

it  to  the  Elmores  when  Lily  suddenly  descended  into 
the  room  again,  and,  saying  something  about  its  being 
quite  dark,  went  out,  and  left  Mr.  Andersen  to  make 
his  adieux  to  the  others.  He  startled  them  by  say- 
ing that  he  was  to  set  off  for  India  in  the  morning, 
and  he  went  away  very  melancholy. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  Hoskins,  thoughtfully 
retouching  his  sketch,  "  that  I  should  feel  very  lively 
about  going  out  to  India  myself." 

"  He  seems  to  be  a  very  affectionate  young  fellow," 
observed  Elmore,  "  and  I  've  no  doubt  he  will  feel  the 
separation  from  his  friends.  But  I  really  don't  know 
why  he  should  have  brought  me  a  bouquet,  and  a 
.small  turtle  in  a  box,  on  the  eve  of  his  departure." 

"  What  ? "  cried  Hoskins,  with  a  rude  guffaw  ;  and 
when  Elmore  had  showed  his  gifts,  Hoskins  threw 
back  his  head  and  laughed  indecently.  His  behavior 
nettled  El  more,  and  it  sent  Mrs.  Elmore  prematurely 
out  of  the  room;  for,  not  content  with  his  ex- 
plosions of  laughter,  he  continued  for  some  time  to 
amuse  himself  by  touching  up  with  the  point  of  his 
pencil  the  tail  of  the  turtle  which  he  had  turned  out 
of  its  box  upon  the  table.  At  Mrs.  Elmore's  with- 
drawal he  stopped,  and  presently  said  good-night 
rather  soberly. 

Then   she   returned.     "  Owen,"   she    asked  sadly, 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  95 

"did  you  really  think  these  flowers  and  that  turtle 
were  for  you  ? " 

"Why,  yes,"  he  answered. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  whether  I  would  n't  almost 
rather  it  had  been  a  joke.     I  believe  that  I  would 
rather   despise    your   heart   than  your  head.     Why 
should  Mr.  Andersen  bring  you  flowers  and  a  turtle  ? " 
"  Upon  my  word,  I  don't  know." 
"  They  were   for   Lily !      And   your   mistake   has 
added  another  pang  to  the  poor  young  fellow's  suf- 
fering.    She  has  just  refused  him,"  she  said ;  and  as 
Elmore  continued  to  glare  blankly  at  her,  she  added  : 
"  She  was  refusing  him  there  on  the  balcony  while 
that  disgusting  Mr.  Hoskins   was   sketching  them ; 
and  he  had  his  hand  up,  that  way,  because  he  was 
crying." 

"  This  is  horrible,  Celia  !"  cried  Elmore.  The  scent 
of  the  flowers  lying  on  the  table  seemed  to  choke 
him  ;  the  turtle  clawing  about  on  the  smooth  surface 

looked  demoniacal.     "  Why " 

"  Now,  don't  ask  me  why  she  refused  him,  Owen. 
Of  course  she  could  n't  care  for  a  boy  like  that.  But 
he  can't  realize  it,  and  it 's  just  as  miserable  for  him 
as  if  he  were  a  thousand  years  old." 

Elmore  hung  his  head.  "  It  was  all  a  mistake.  But 
how  should  I  know  any  better?  I  am  a  straight- 


96  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

forward  man,  Celia;  and  I  am  unfit  for  the  care 
that  has  been  thrown  upon  me.  It's  more  than  I 
can  bear.  No,  I  'm  not  fit  for  it ! "  he  cried  at  last ; 
and  his  wife,  seeing  him  so  crushed,  now  said  some- 
thing to  console  him. 

"I  know  you're  not.  I  see  it  more  and  more. 
But  I  know  that  you  will  do  the  best  you  can,  and 
that  you  will  always  act  from  a  good  motive.  Only 
do  try  to  be  more  on  your  guard." 

"  I  will  —  I  will,"  he  answered  humbly. 

He  had  a  temptation,  the  next  time  he  visited 
Hoskins,  to  tell  him  the  awful  secret,  and  to  see  how 
the  situation  of  that  night,  with  this  lurid  light  upon 
it,  affected  him :  it  could  do  poor  Andersen,  now  on 
his  way  to  India,  no  harm.  He  yielded  to  his  tempta- 
tion, at  the  same  time  that  he  confessed  his  own 
blunder  about  the  flowers. 

Hoskins  whistled.  "  I  tell  you  what,"  he  said,  after 
a  long  pause,  "  there  are  some  things  in  history  that 
I  never  could  realize,  —  like  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots, 
for  instance,  putting  on  her  best  things,  and  stepping 
down  into  the  front  parlor  of  that  castle  to  have  her 
head  off.  But  a  thing  like  this,  happening  on  your 
own  balcony,  helps  you  to  realize  it." 

"  It  helps  you  to  realize  it,"  assented  Elmore,  deeply 
oppressed  by  the  tragic  parallel. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  97 

"He's  just  beginning  to  feel  it  about  now,"  said 
Hoskins,  with  strange  sang  froid.  "  I  reckon  it 's  a 
good  deal  like  being  shot.  I  did  n't  fully  appreciate 
my  little  hit  under  a  couple  of  days.  Then  I  began 
to  find  out  that  something  had  happened.  Look 
here,"  he  added,  "  I  want  to  show  you  something ; " 
and  he  pulled  the  wet  cloth  off  a  breadth  of  clay 
which  he  had  set  up  on  a  board  stayed  against  the 
wall.  It  was  a  bas-relief  representing  a  female  fig- 
ure advancing  from  the  left  corner  over  a  stretch  of 
prairie  towards  a  bulk  of  forest  on  the  right ;  bison, 
bear,  and  antelope  fled  before  her;  a  lifted  hand 
shielded  her  eyes ;  a  star  lit  the  fillet  that  bound  her 
hair. 

"  That 's  the  best  thing  you  've  done,  Hoskins,"  said 
Elinore.  "  What  do  you  call  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  have  n't  settled  yet.  I  have  thought  of 
'Westward  the  Star  of  Empire,'  but  that's  rather 
long;  and  I've  thought  of  'American  Enterprise.'  I 
ain't  in  any  hurry  to  name  it.  You  like  it,  do  you  ? " 

"  I  like  it  immensely  ! "  cried  Elmore.  "  You  must 
let  me  bring  the  ladies  to  see  it." 

"Well,  not  just  yet,"  said  the  sculptor,  in  some 
confusion.  "I  want  to  get  it  a  little  further  along 
first." 

They  stood  looking  together  at  the  figure;  and 
7 


98  A   FEAKFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

when  Elmore  went  away  he  puzzled  himself  about 
something  in  it, —  he  could  not  tell  exactly  what. 
He  thought  he  had  seen  that  face  and  figure  before, 
but  this  is  what  often  occurs  to  the  connoisseur  of 
modern  sculpture.  His  mind  heavily  reverted  to 
Lily  and  her  suitors.  Take  her  in  one  way,  especially 
in  her  subordination  to  himself,  the  girl  was  as  simply 
a  child  as  any  in  the  world,  —  good-hearted,  tender, 
and  sweet,  and,  as  he  could  see,  without  tendency  to 
flirtation.  Take  her  in  another  way,  confront  her  with 
a  young  and  marriageable  man,  and  Elmore  greatly 
feared  that  she  unconsciously  set  all  her  beauty  and 
grace  at  work  to  charm  him ;  another  life  seemed  to 
inform  her,  and  irradiate  from  her,  apart  from  which 
she  existed  simple  and  childlike  still.  In  the  secu- 
rity of  his  own  deposited  affections,  it  appeared  to 
him  cruelly  absurd  that  a  passion  which  any  other 
pretty  girl  might,  and  some  other  pretty  girl  in  time 
must,  have  kindled,  should  cling,  when  once  awakened, 
so  inalienably  to  the  pretty  girl  who  had,  in  a  million 
chances,  chanced  to  awaken  it.  He  wondered  how 
much  of  this  constancy  was  natural,  and  how  much 
merely  attributive  and  traditional,  and  whether  hu- 
man happiness  or  misery  were  increased  by  it  on 
the  whole. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  99 


IX. 


IN  the  respite  which  followed  the  dismissal  of 
Andersen,  the  English  painter,  Eose-Black,  visited 
the  El  mores  as  often  as  the  servant,  who  had  orders 
in  his  case  to  say  that  they  were  impediti,  failed  of 
her  duty.  They  could  not  always  escape  him  at  the 
caffe,  and  they  would  have  left  off  dining  at  the  hotel 
but  for  the  shame  of  feeling  that  he  had  driven  them 
away.  If  he  had  been  an  Englishman  repelling  their 
advances,  instead  of  an  Englishman  pursuing  them, 
he  could  not  have  been  more  offensive.  He  affronted 
their  national  as  well  as  personal  self-esteem ;  he  early 
declared  himself  a  sympathizer  with  the  Southrons 
(as  the  London  press  then  called  them),  and  he  ex- 
pressed the  current  belief  of  his  compatriots,  that  we 
were  going  to  the  dogs. 

"  What  do  you  really  make  of  him,  Owen  ? "  asked 
Mrs.  Elrnore,  after  an  evening  that,  in  its  improbable 
discomfort,  had  passed  quite  like  a  nightmare. 

"  Well,  I  Ve  been  thinking  a  good  deal  about  him. 


100  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

I  have  been  wondering  if,  in  his  phenomenal  way, 
he  is  not  a  final  expression  of  the  national  genius, — 
the  stupid  contempt  for  the  rights  of  others;  the 
tacit  denial  of  the  rights  of  any  people  who  are  at 
English  mercy ;  the  assumption  .that  the  courtesies 
and  decencies  of  life  are  for  use  exclusively  towards 
Englishmen." 

This  was  in  that  embittered^  old  war-time  :  we  have 
since  learned  how  forbearing  and  generous  and  ami- 
able Englishmen  are ;  how  they  never  take  advantage 
of  any  one  they  believe  stronger  than  themselves,  or 
fail  in  consideration  for  those  they  imagine  their 
superiors ;  how  you  have  but  to  show  yourself  suc- 
cessful in  order  to  win  their  respect,  and  even 
affection. 

But  for  the  present  Mrs.  Elmore  replied  to  her 
husband's  perverted  ideas,  "Yes,  it  must  be  so,"  and 
she  supported  him  in  the  ineffectual  experiment  of 
deferential  politeness,  Christian  charity,  broad  hu- 
manity, and  savage  rudeness  upon  Rose-Black.  It 
was  all  one  to  Rose-Black. 

He  took  an  air  of  serious  protection  towards  Mrs. 
Elmore,  and  often  gave  her  advice,  while  he  practised 
an  easy  gallantry  with  Lily,  and  ignored  Elmore  al- 
together. His  intimacy  was  superior  to  the  accidents 
of  their  moods,  and  their  slights  and  snubs  were 


A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  101 

accepted  apparently  as  interesting  expressions  of  a 
civilization  about  which  he  was  insatiably  curious, 
especially  as  regarded  the  relations  of  young  people. 
There  was  no  mistaking  the  fact  that  Rose-Black  in 
his  way  had  fallen  under  the  spell  which  Elmore  had 
learned  to  dread ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  be  done, 
and  he  helplessly  waited.  He  saw  what  must  come  ; 
and  one  evening  it  came,  when  Rose-Black,  in  more 
than  usually  offensive  patronage,  lolled  back  upon 
the  sofa  at  Miss  Mayhew's  side,  and  said,  "  About  flir- 
tations, now,  in  America, — tell  me  something  about 
flirtations.  We  Ve  heard  so  much  about  your  Ameri- 
can flirtations.  We  only  have  them  with  married 
ladies,  on  the  continent,  and  I  don't  suppose  Mrs.  El- 
more  would  think  of  one." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Lily.  "  I  don't 
know  anything  about  flirtations." 

This  seemed  to  amuse  Rose-Black  as  an  uncom- 
monly fine  piece  of  American  humor,  which  was  then 
just  beginning  to  make  its  way  with  the  English. 
"  Oh,  but  come,  nowj  you  don't  expect  me  to  believe 
that,  you  know.  If  you  won't  tell  me,  suppose 
you  show  me  what  an  American  flirtation  is  like. 
Suppose  we  get  up  a  flirtation.  How  should  you 
begin  ?  " 

The  girl    rose  with   a   more   imposing   air  than 


102  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Elmore  could  have  imagined  of  her  stature ;  but  al- 
most any  woman  can  be  awful  in  emergencies.  "  I 
should  begin  by  bidding  you  good-evening,"  she  an- 
swered, and  swept  out  of  the  room. 

Elrnore  felt  as  if  he  had  been  left  alone  with  a  man 
mortally  hurt  in  combat,  and  were  likely  to  be  ar- 
rested for  the  deed.  He  gazed  with  fascination  upon 
Kose-Black,  and  wondered  to  see  him  stir,  and  at 
last  rise,  and  with  some  incoherent  words  to  them, 
get  himself  away.  He  dared  not  lift  his  gaze  to  the 
man's  eyes,  lest  he  should  see  there  some  reflection 
of  the  pain  that  filled  his  own.  He  would  have  gone 
after  him,  and  tried  to  say  something  in  condolence, 
but  he  was  quite  helpless  to  move;  and  as  he  sat 
still,  gazing  at  the  door  through  which  Rose-Black 
disappeared,  Mrs.  Elmore  said  quietly  :  — 

"  Well,  really,  I  think  that  ought  .to  be  the  last  of 
him.  You  see,  she 's  quite  able  to  take  care  of  herself 
when  she  knows  her  ground.  You  can't  say  that  she 
has  thrown  the  brunt  of  this  affair  upon  you,  Owen." 

"  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,"  sighed  Elmore.  "  I 
think  I  suffer  less  when  I  do  it  than  when  I  see  it. 
It's  horrible." 

"  He  deserved  it,  every  bit,"  returned  his  wife. 

"Oh,  I  dare  say,"  Elmore  granted.  "  But  the  sight 
even  of  justice  is  n't  pleasant,  I  find." 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  103 

"  I  don't  understand  you,  Owen.  How  can  you 
care  so  much  for  this  impudent  wretch's  little  snub, 
and  yet  be  so  indifferent  about  refusing  Captain 
Ehrhardt  ? " 

"  I  'm  not  indifferent  about  it,  my  dear.  I  know 
that  I  did  right,  but  I  don't  know  that  I  could  do 
right  under  the  same  circumstances  again." 

In  fact  there  were  times  when  Elmore  found  al- 
most insupportable  the  absolute  conclusion  to  which 
that  business  had  come.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that 
anything  has  come  to  an  end  in  this  world.  For  a 
time,  death  itself  leaves  the  ache  of  an  unsatisfied  ex- 
pectation, as  if  somehow  the  interrupted  life  must  go 
on,  and  there  is  no  change  we  make  or  suffer  which 
is  not  denied  by  the  sensation  of  daily  habit.  If 
Ehrhardt  had  really  come  back  from  the  vague  limbo 
to  which  he  had  been  so  inexorably  relegated,  he  might 
only  have  restored  the  original  situation  in  all  its  dis- 
comfort and  apprehension;  yet  maintaining,  as  he 
did,  this  perfect  silence  and  absence,  he  established  a 
hold  upon  Elmore's  imagination  which  deepened  be- 
cause he  could  not  discuss  the  matter  frankly  with 
his  wife.  He  weakly  feared  to  let  her  know  what 
was  passing  in  his  thoughts,  lest  some  misconcep- 
tion of  hers  should  turn  them  into  self-accusal  or 
urge  him  to  some  attempt  at  the  reparation  towards 


104  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

which  he  wavered.  He  really  could  have  done  no- 
thing that  would  not  have  made  the  matter  worse, 
and  he  confined  himself  to  speculating  upon  the 
character  and  history  of  the  man  whom  lie  knew  only 
by  the  incoherent  hearsay  of  two  excited  women, 
and  by  the  brief  record  of  hope  and  passion  left  in 
the  notes  which  Lily  treasured  somewhere  among 
the  archives  of  a  young  girl's  triumphs.  He  had  a 
morbid  curiosity  to  see  these  letters  again,  but  he 
dared  not  ask  for  them ;  and  indeed  it  would  have 
been  an  idle  self-indulgence:  he  remembered  them 
perfectly  well.  Seeing  Lily  so  indifferent,  it  was 
characteristic  of  him,  in  that  safety  from  conse- 
quences which  he  chiefly  loved,  that  he  should  tacitly 
constitute  himself,  in  some  sort,  the  champion  of  her 
rejected  suitor,  whose  pain  he  luxuriously  fancied  in 
all  its  different  stages  and  degrees.  His  indolent  pity 
even  developed  into  a  sort  of  self-righteous  abhorrence 
of  the  girl's  hardness.  But  this  was  wholly  within 
himself,  and  could  work  no  sort  of  harm.  If  he 
never  ventured  to  hint  these  feelings  to  his  wife,  he 
was  still  further  from  confessing  them  to  Lily ;  but  once 
he  approached  the  subject  with  Hoskins  in  a  well- 
guarded  generality  relating  to  the  different  kinds  of 
sensibility  developed  by  the  European  and  American 
civilization.  A  recent  suicide  for  love  which  excited 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  105 

all  Venice  at  that  time  —  an  Austrian  officer  hope- 
lessly attached  to  an  Italian  girl  had  shot  himself — 
had  suggested  their  talk,  and  given  fresh  poignancy  to 
the  misgivings  in  Elmore's  mind. 

O  O 

"  Well,"  said  Hoskiris,  "  those  Dutch  are  queer. 
They  don't  look  at  women  as  respectfully  as  we  do, 
and  they  mix  up  so  much  cabbage  with  their  romance 
that  you  don't  know  exactly  how  to  take  them ;  and 
yet  here  you  find  this  fellow  suffering  just  as  much  as 
a  white  man  because  the  girl's  folks  won't  let  her  have 
him.  In  fact,  I  don't  know  but  he  suffered  more  than 
the  average  American  citizen.  I  think  we  have  a  great 
deal  more  common  sense  in  our  love-affairs.  We  re- 
spect women  more  than  any  other  people,  and  I  think 
we  show  them  more  true  politeness ;  we  let  'em  have 
their  way  more,  and  get  their  finger  into  the  pie  right 
along,  and  it 's  right  we  should :  but  we  don't  make 
fools  of  ourselves  about  them,  as  a  general  rule.  We 
know  they  're  awfully  nice,  and  they  know  we  know 
it ;  and  it 's  a  perfectly  understood  thing  all  round. 
We've  been  used  to  each  other  all  our  lives,  and 
they  're  just  as  sensible  as  we  are.  They  like  a  fellow, 
when  they  do  like  him,  about  as  well  as  any  of  'em  ; 
but  they  know  he 's  a  man  and  a  brother  after  all,  and 
he 's  got  ever  so  much  human  nature  in  him.  Well, 
now,  I  reckon  one  of  these  Dutch  chaps,  the  first  time 


106  A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

he  gets  a  chance  to  speak  with  a  pretty  girl,  thinks 
he's  got  hold  of  a  goddess,  and  I  suppose  the  girl 
feels  just  so  about  him.  Why,  it 's  natural  they  should, 
— they've  never  had  any  chance  to  know  any  better, 
and  your  feelings  are  apt  to  get  the  upper  hand  of 
you,  at  such  times,  anyway.  I  don't  blame  'em.  One 
of  'em  goes  off  and  shoots  himself,  and  the  other  one 
feels  as  if  she  was  never  going  to  get  over  it.  Well, 
now,  look  at  the  way  Miss  Lily  acted  in  that  little 
business  of  hers :  one  of  these  girls  over  here  would 
have  had  her  head  completely  turned  by  that  adven- 
ture ;  but  when  she  could  n't  see  her  way  exactly 
clear,  she  puts  the  case  in  your  hands,  and  then  stands 
by  what  you  do,  as  calm  as  a  clock." 

"  It  was  a  very  perplexing  thing.  I  did  the  best  I 
knew,"  said  Elmore. 

"  Why,  of  course  you  did,"  cried  Hoskins,  "  and  she 
sees  that  as  well  as  you  or  I  do,  and  she  stands  by 
you  accordingly.  I  tell  you,  that  girl's  got  a  cool 
head." 

In  his"  soul  Elmore  ungratefully  and  inconsist- 
ently wished  that  her  heart  were  not  equally  cool ; 
but  he  only  said,  "  Yes,  she  is  a  good  and  sensible 
girl.  I  hope  the — the  —  other  one  is  equally  re- 
signed." 

"  Oh,  lie  '11  get  along,"  answered  Hoskins,  with  the 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  107 

indifference  of  one  man  for  the  sufferings  of  another 
in  such  matters.  We  are  able  to  offer  a  brother  very 
little  comfort  and  scarcely  any  sympathy  in  those 
unhappy  affairs  of  the  heart  which  move  women  to  a 
pretty  compassion  for  a  disappointed  sister.  A  man 
in  love  is  in  no  wise  interesting  to  us  for  that  reason ; 
and  if  he  is  unfortunate,  we  hope  at  the  farthest  that 
he  will  have  better  luck  next  time.  It  is  only  here 
and  there  that  a  sentimentalist  like  Elmore  stops  to 
pity  him ;  and  it  is  not  certain  that  even  he  would 
have  sighed  over  Captain  Ehrhardt  if  he  had  not 
been  the  means  of  his  disappointment.  As  it  was, 
he  came  away,  feeling  that  doubtless  Ehrhardt  had 
"  got  along,"  and  resolved  at  least  to  spend  no  more 
unavailing  regrets  upon  him. 

The  time  passed  very  quietly  now,  and  if  it  had 
not  been  for  Hoskins,  the  ladies  must  have  found  it 
dull.  He  had  nothing  to  do,  except  as  he  made  him- 
self occupation  with  his  art,  and  he  willingly  bestowed 
on  them  the  leisure  which  Elmore  could  not  find.  They 
went  everywhere  with  him,  and  saw  the  city  to  ad- 
vantage through  his  efforts.  Doors,  closed  to  ordinary 
curiosity,  opened  to  the  magic  of  his  card,  and  he 
showed  a  pleasure  in  using  such  little  privileges  as 
his  position  gave  him  for  their  amusement.  He  went 
upon  errands  for  them ;  he  was  like  a  brother,  with 


108  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

something  more  than  a  brother's  pliability ;  he  came 
half  the  time  to  breakfast  with  them,  and  was  always 
welcome  to  all.  He  had  the  gift  of  extracting  com- 
fort from  the  darkest  news  about  the  war ;  he  was  a 
prophet  of  unfailing  good  to  the  Union  cause,  and  in 
many  hours  of  despondency  they  willingly  submitted 
to  the  authority  of  his  greater  experience,  and  took 
heart  again. 

"  I  like  your  indomitable  hopefulness,  Hoskins," 
said  Elmore,  on  one  of  those  occasions  when  the  con- 
sul was  turning  defeat  into  victory.  "  There  's  a 
streak  of  unconscious  poetry  in  it,  just  as  there  is  in 
your  taking  up  the  subjects  you  do.  I  imagine  that, 
so  far  as  the  judgment  of  the  world  goes,  our  fortunes 
are  at  the  lowest  ebb  just  now  — " 

"  Oh,  the  world  is  wrong ! "  interrupted  the  con- 
sul. "Those  London  papers  are  all  in  the  pay  of 
the  rebels." 

"I  mean  that  we  have  no  sort  of  sympathy  in 
Europe ;  and  yet  here  you  are,  embodying  in  your  con- 
ception of  '  Westward '  the  arrogant  faith  of  the  days 
when  our  destiny  seemed  universal  union  and  univer- 
sal dominion.  There  is  something  sublime  to  me  in 
your  treatment  of  such  a  work  at  such  a  time.  I 
think  an  Italian,  for  instance,  if  his  country  were  in- 
volved in  a  life  and  death  struggle  like  this  of  ours, 


A  FEARFUL    RESPONSIBILITY.  109 

would  have  expressed  something  of  the  anxiety  and 
apprehension  of  the  time  in  it ;  but  this  conception 
of  yours  is  as  serenely  undisturbed  by  the  facts  of  the 
war  as  if  secession  had  taken  place  in  another  planet. 
There  is  something  Greek  in  that  repose  of  feeling, 
triumphant  over  circumstance.  It  is  like  the  calm 
beauty  which  makes  you  forget  the  anguish  of  the 
Laocoon." 

"Is  that  so,  Professor?"  said  Hoskins,  blushing 
modestly,  as  an  artist  often  must  in  these  days  of  cre- 
ative criticism.  He  seemed  to  reflect  awhile  before 
he  added,  "  Well,  I  reckon  you  're  partly  right.  If  we 
ever  did  go  to  smash,  it  would  take  us  a  whole  gener- 
ation to  find  it  out.  We  have  all  been  raised  to  put 
so  much  dependence  on  Uncle  Sain,  that  if  the  old 
gentleman  really  did  pass  in  his  checks  we  should 
only  think  he  was  lying  low  for  a  new  deal.  I  never 
happened  to  think  it  out  before,  but  I  'm  pretty  sure 
it's  so." 

"  Your  work  would  n't  be  worth  half  so  much  to 
me  if  you  had  '  thought  it  out,'  "  said  Elmore.  "  It 's 
the  unconsciousness  of  the  faith  that  makes  its  chief 
value,  as  I  said  before;  and  there  is  another  thing 
about  it  that  interests  and  pleases  me  still  more." 

"  What 's  that  ? "  asked  the  sculptor. 

"  The  instinctive  way  in  which  you  have  given  the 


110  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

figure  an  entirely  American  quality.  There  was 
something  very  familiar  to  me  in  it,  the  first  time 
you  showed  it,  but  I  've  only  just  been  able  to  formu- 
late my  impression :  I  see  now  that  while  the  spirit 
of  your  conception  is  Greek,  you  have  given  it,  as  you 
ought,  the  purest  American  expression.  Your  '  West- 
ward '  is  no  Hellenic  goddess :  she  is  a  vivid  and  self- 
reliant  American  girl." 

At  these  words,  Hoskins  reddened  deeply,  and 
seemed  not  to  know  where  to  look.  Mrs.  Elmore  had 
the  effect  of  escaping  through  the  door  into  her  own 
room,  and  Miss  Mayhew  ran  out  upon  the  balcony. 
Hoskins  followed  each  in  turn  with  a  queer  glance, 
and  sat  a  moment  in  silence.  Then  he  said,  "  Well,  I 
reckon  I  must  be  going,"  and  went  rather  abruptly, 
without  offering  to  take  leave  of  the  ladies. 

As  soon  as  he  was  gone,  Lily  came  in  from  the  bal- 
cony, and  whipped  into  Mrs.  Elmore's  room,  from 
which  she  flashed  again  in  swift  retreat  to  her  own, 
and  was  seen  no  more ;  and  then  Mrs.  Elmore  carne 
back,  with  a  flushed  face,  to  where  her  husband  sat 
mystified. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said  gravely,  "  I  'm  afraid  you  've 
hurt  Mr.  Hoskins's  feelings." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ? "  she  asked ;  and  then  she 
burst  into  a  wild  cry  of  laughter.  " 0,  Owen,  Owen! 
you  will  kill  me  yet ! " 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  Ill 

"Beally,"  he  replied  with  dignity,  "I  don't  see 
any  occasion  in  what  I  said  for  this  extraordinary 
behavior." 

"  Of  course  you  don't,  and  that 's  just  what  makes 
the  fun  of  it.  So  you  found  something  familiar  in 
Mr.  Hoskins's  statue  from  the  first,  did  you  ? "  she 
asked.  "  And  you  did  n't  notice  anything  particular 
in  it  ? " 

"  Particular,  particular  ? "  he  demanded,  beginning 
to  lose  his  patience  at  this. 

"  Oh,"  she  exclaimed,  "  could  n't  you  see  that  it  was 
Lily,  all  over  again  ? " 

Elmore  laughed  in  turn.  "  Why,  so  it  is ;  so  it  is  ! 
That  accounts  for  everything  that  puzzled  me.  I 
don't  wonder  my  maunderings  amused  you.  It  was 
ridiculous,  to  be  sure  !  When  in  the  world  did  she 
give  him  the  sittings,  and  how  did  you  manage  to 
keep  it  from  me  so  well  ?  " 

"  Owen ! "  cried  his  wife,  with  terrible  severity. 
"  You  don't  think  that  Lily  would  let  him  put  her 
into  it  ? " 

"Why,  I  supposed  —  I  did  n't  know  —  I  don't  see 
how  he  could  have  done  it  unless  —  " 

"He  did  it  without  leave  or  license,"  said  Mrs. 
Elmore.  "  We  saw  it  all  along,  but  he  never  '  let 
on/  as  he  would  say,  about  it,  and  we  never  meant  to 
say  anything,  of  course." 


112  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"Then,"  replied  Elmore,  delighted  with  the  fact, 
"it  has  been  a  purely  unconscious  piece  of  cere- 
bration." 

"  Cerebration  ! "  exclaimed  Mrs.  Elmore,  with  more 
scorn  than  she  knew  how  to  express.  "  I  should 
think  as  much  !  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  Elmore,  with  the  pique 
of  a  man  who  does  not  care  to  be  quite  trampled 
under  foot.  "  I  don't  see  that  the  theory  is  so  very 
unphilosophical." 

"  Oh,  not  at  all ! "  mocked  his  wife.  "  It 's  philosoph- 
ical to  the  last  degree.  Be  as  philosophical  as  you 
please,  Owen  ;  I  shall  love  you  still  the  same."  She 
came  up  to  him  where  he  sat,  and  twisting  her  arm 
round  his  face,  patronizingly  kissed  him  on  top  of  the 
head.  Then  she  released  him,  and  left  him  with  an- 
other burst  of  derision. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  113 


X. 


AFTER  this  Elmore  had  such  an  uncomfortable  feel- 
ing that  he  hated  to  see  Hoskins  again,  and  lie  was 
relieved  when  the  sculptor  failed  to  make  his  usual 
call,  the  next  evening.  He  had  not  been  at  dinner 
either,  and  he  did  not  reappear  for  several  days. 
Then  he  merely  said  that  he  had  been  spending  the 
time  at  Chioggia,  with  a  French  painter  who  was 
making  some  studies  down  there,  and  they  all  took 
up  the  old  routine  of  their  friendly  life  without  em- 
barrassment. 

At  first  it  seemed  to  Elmore  that  Lily  was  a  little  shy 
of  Hoskins,  and  he  thought  that  she  resented  his  using 
her  charm  in  his  art ;  but  before  the  evening  wore 
away,  he  lost  this  impression.  They  all  got  into  a  long 
talk  about  home,  and  she  took  her  place  at  the  piano 
and  played  some  of  the  war-songs  that  had  begun  to 
supersede  the  old  negro  melodies.  Then  she  wan- 
dered back  to  them,  with  fingers  that  idly  drifted 
over  the  keys,  and  ended  with  "  Stop  dat  knoekin'," 

8 


114  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

in  which  Hoskins  joined  with  his  powerful  bass  in 
the  recitative  "  Let  me  in,"  and  Elmore  himself  had 
half  a  mind  to  attempt  a  part.  The  sculptor  rose  as 
she  struck  the  keys  with  a  final  crash,  but  lingered, 
as  his  fashion  was  when  he  had  something  to  pro- 
pose :  if  he  felt  pretty  sure  that  the  thing  would  be 
liked,  he  brought  it  in  as  if  he  had  only  happened  to 
remember  it.  He  now  drew  out  a  large,  square,  ceremo- 
nious-looking envelope,  at  which  he  glanced  as  if,  after 
all,  he  was  rather  surprised  to  see  it,  and  said,  "  Oh, 
by  the  by,  Mrs.  Elmore,  I  wish  you  'd  tell  me  what  to 
do  about  this  thing.  Here 's  something  that 's  come 
to  me  in  my  official  capacity,  but  it  is  n't  exactly  con- 
sular business,  —  if  it  was  I  don't  believe  I  should 
ask  any  lady  for  instructions,  —  and  I  don't  know  ex- 
actly what  to  do.  It  's  so  long  since  I  corresponded 
with  a  princess  that  I  don't  even  know  how  to  an- 
swer her  letter." 

The  ladies  perhaps  feared  a  hoax  of  some  sort,  and 
would  not  ask  to  see  the  letter;  and  then  Hoskins 
recognized  his  failure  to  play  upon  their  curiosity 
with  a  laugh,  and  gave  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Elmore. 
It  was  an  invitation  to  a  mask  ball,  of  which  all 
Venice  had  begun  to  speak.  A  great  Eussian  lady, 
who  had  come  to  spend  the  winter  in  the  Lagoons, 
and  had  taken  a  whole  floor  at  one  of  the  hotels,  had 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  115 

sent  out  her  cards,  apparently  to  all  the  available 
people  in  the  city,  for  the  event  which  was  to  take 
place  a  fortnight  later.  In  the  mean  time,  a  thrill  of 
preparation  was  felt  in  various  quarters,  and  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  life  was  interrupted  in  a  way  that  gave 
some  idea  of  the  old  times,  when  Venice  was  the 
capital  of  pleasure,  and  everything  yielded  there  to 
the  great  business  of  amusement.  Mrs.  Elmore  had 
found  it  impossible  to  get  a  pair  of  fine  shoes  finished 
until  after  the  ball ;  a  dress  which  Lily  had  ordered 
could  not  be  made ;  their  laundress  had  given  notice 
that  for  the  present  all  fluting  and  quilling  was  out 
of  the  question;  one  already  heard  that  the  chief 
Venetian  perruquier  and  his  assistants  were  engaged 
for  every  moment  of  the  forty-eight  hours  before  the 
ball,  and  that  whoever  had  him  now  must  sit  up  with 
her  hair  dressed  for  two  nights  at  least.  Mrs.  Elmore 
had  a  fanatical  faith  in  these  stories ;  and  while 
agreeing  with  her  husband,  as  a  matter  of  principle, 
that  mask  balls  were  wrong,  and  that  it  was  in  bad 
taste  for  a  foreigner  to  insult  the  sorrow  of  Venice  by 
a  festivity  of  the  sort  at  such  a  time,  she  had  secretly 
indulged  longings  which  the  sight  of  Hoskins's  invi- 
tation rendered  almost  insupportable.  Her  longings 
were  not  for  herself,  but  for  Lily :  if  she  could  pro- 
vide Lily  with  the  experience  of  a  masquerade  in 


116  A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Venice,  she  could  overpay  all  the  kindnesses  that  the 
Mayhews  had  ever  done  her.  It  was  an  ambition 
neither  ignoble  nor  ungenerous,  and  it  was  with  a 
really  heroic  effort  that  she  silenced  it  in  passing  the 
invitation  to  her  husband,  and  simply  saying  to 
Hoskins,  "Of  course  you  will  go." 

"  I  don't  know  about  that,"  he  answered.  "  That 's 
the  point  I  want  some  advice  on.  You  see  this  docu- 
ment calls  for  a  lady  to  fill  out  the  bill." 

"  Oh,"  returned  Mrs.  Elmore,  "  you  will  find  some 
Americans  at  the  hotels.  You  can  take  them." 

"  Well,  now,  I  was  thinking,  Mrs.  Elmore,  that  I 
should  like  to  take  you." 

"  Take  me  ! "  she  echoed  tremulously.  •  "  What  an 
idea  !  I  'm  too  old  to  go  to  mask  balls." 

"  You  don't  look  it,"  suggested  Hoskins. 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  go,"  she  sighed.  "But  it's  very, 
•very  kind." 

Hoskins  dropped  his  head,  and  gave  the  low  chuckle 
with  which  he  confessed  any  little  bit  of  humbug. 
"  Well,  you  or  Miss  Lily." 

Lily  had  retired  to  the  other  side  of  the  room  as 
soon  as  the  parley  about  the  invitation  began.  With- 
out asking  or  seeing,  she  knew  what  was  in  the  note, 
and  now  she  felt  it  right  to  make  a  feint  of  not  know- 
ing what  Mrs.  Elmore  meant  when  she  asked,  "  What 
do  you  say,  Lily  ? " 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  117 

When  the  question  was  duly  explained  to  her,  she 
answered  languidly,  "I  don't  know.  Do  you  think 
I'd  better?" 

"  I  might  as  well  make  a  clean  breast  of  it,  first  as 
last,"  said  Hoskins.  "  I  thought  perhaps  Mrs.  Elmore 
might  refuse,  she 's  so  stiff  about  some  things," —  here 
he  gave  that  chuckle  of  his, —  "and  so  I  came  pre- 
pared for  contingencies.  It  occurred  to  me  that  it 
might  n't  be  quite  the  thing,  and  so  I  went  round  to 
the  Spanish  consul  and  asked  him  how  he  thought 
it  would  do  for  me  to  matronize  a  young  lady  if  I 
could  get  one,  and  he  said  he  did  n't  think  it  would 
do  at  all."  Hoskins  let  this  adverse  decision  sink 
into  the  breasts  of  his  listeners  before  he  added  :  "  But 
he  said  that  he  was  going  with  his  wife,  and  that  if 
we  would  come  along  she  could  matronize  us  both. 
I  don't  know  how  it  would  work,"  he  concluded  im- 
partially. 

They  all  looked  at  Elmore,  who  stood  holding  the 
princess's  missive  in  his  hand,  and  darkly  forecasting 
the  chances  of  consent  and  denial.  At  the  first  sug- 
gestion of  the  matter,  a  reckless  hope  that  this  ball 
might  bring  Ehrhardt  above  their  horizon  again 
sprang  up  in  his  heart,  and  became  a  desperate  fear 
when  the  whole  responsibility  of  action  was,  as  usual, 
left  with  him.  He  stood,  feeling  that  Hoskins  had 
used  him  very  ill. 


118  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  I  suppose,"  began  Mrs.  Elmore  very  thoughtfully, 
"  that  this  will  be  something  quite  in  the  style  of  the 
old  masquerades  under  the  Republic." 

"Regular  Ridotto  business,  the  Spanish  consul 
says,"  answered  Hoskins. 

"  It  might  be  very  useful  to  you,  Owen,"  she  re- 
sumed, "  in  an  historical  way,  if  Lily  were  to  go  and 
take  notes  of  everything ;  so  that  when  you  came  to 
that  period  you  could  describe  its  corruptions  intelli- 
gently." 

Elmore  laughed.  "  I  never  thought  of  that,  my 
dear,"  he  said,  returning  the  invitation  to  Hoskins. 
"  Your  historical  sense  has  been  awakened  late,  but  it 
promises  to  be  very  active.  Lily  had  better  go,  by 
all  means,  and  I  shall  depend  upon  her  coming  home 
with  very  full  notes  upon  her  dance-list." 

They  laughed  at  the  professor's  sarcasm,  and  Hos- 
kins, having  undertaken  to  see  that  the  last  claims  of 
etiquette  were  satisfied  by  getting  an  invitation  sent 
to  Miss  Mayhew  through  the  Spanish  consul,  went 
off,  and  left  the  ladies  to  the  discussion  of  ways  and 
means.  Mrs.  Elmore  said  that  of  course  it  was  now 
too  late  to  hope  to  get  anything  done,  and  then  set 
herself  to  devise  the  character  that  Lily  would  have 
appeared  in  if  there  had  been  time  to  get  her  ready, 
or  if  all  the  work-people  had  not  been  so  busy  that  it 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  119 

was  merely  frantic  to  think  of  anything.  She  first 
patriotically  considered  her  as  Columbia,  with  the 
customary  drapery  of  stars  and  stripes  and  the  cap  of 
liberty.  But  while  holding  that  she  would  have 
looked  very  pretty  in  the  dress,  Mrs.  Elmore  decided 
that  it  would  have  been  too  hackneyed ;  and  besides, 
everybody  would  have  known  instantly  who  it  was. 

"Why  not  have  had  her  go  in  the  character  of 
Mr.  Hoskins's  '  Westward '  ? "  suggested  Elmore,  with 
lazy  irony. 

"The  very  thing!"  cried  his  wife.  "Owen,  you 
deserve  great  credit  for  thinking  of  that ;  no  one  else 
would  have  done  it !  No  one  will  dream  what  it 
means,  and  it  will  be  great  fun,  letting  them  make 
it  out.  We  must  keep  it  a  dead  secret  from  Mr. 
Hoskins,  and  let  her  surprise  him  with  it  when  he 
comes  for  her  that  evening.  It  will  be  a  very  pretty 
way  of  returning  his  compliment,  and  it  will  be  a 
sort  of  delicate  acknowledgement  of  his  kindness  in 
asking  her,  and  in  so  many  other  ways.  Yes,  you  've 
hit  it  exactly,  Owen;  she  shall  go  as  'Westward.'" 

"Go?"  echoed  Elmore,  who  had  with  difficulty 
realized  the  rapid  change  of  tense.  "  I  thought  you 
said  you  could  n't  get  her  ready." 

"  We  must  manage  somehow,"  replied  Mrs.  Elmore. 
And  somehow  a  shoemaker  for  the  sandals,  a  seam- 


120  A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

stress  for  the  delicate  flowing  draperies,  a  hair-dresser 
for  the  adjustment  of  the  young  girl's  rebellious  abun- 
dance of  hair  beneath  the  star-lit  fillet,  were  actually 
found, —  with  the  help  of  Hoskins,  as  usual,  though 
he  was  not  suffered  to  know  anything  of  the  character 
to  whose  make-up  he  contributed.  The  perruquier,  a 
personage  of  lordly  address  naturally,  and  of  a  dignity 
heightened  by  the  demand  in  which  he  found  him- 
self came  early  in  the  morning,  and  was  received 
by  Elmore  with  a  self-possession  that  ill-comported 
with  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion.  "  Sit  down,"  said 
Elmore  easily,  pushing  him  a  chair.  "  The  ladies  will 
be  here  presently." 

"  But  I  have  no  time  to  sit  down,  signore ! "  replied 
the  artist,  with  an  imperious  bow,  "and  the  ladies 
must  be  here  instantly." 

Mrs.  Elmore  always  said  that  if  she  had  not  heard 
this  conversation,  and  hurried  in  at  once,  the  perruquier 
would  have  left  them  at  that  point.  But  she  con- 
trived to  appease  him  by  the  manifestation  of  an  in- 
telligent sympathy  ;  she  made  Lily  leave  her  breakfast 
untasted,  and  submit  her  beautiful  head  to  the  touch 
of  this  man,  with  whom  it  was  but  a  head  of  hair  and 
nothing  more ;  and  in  an  hour  the  work  was  done. 
The  artist  whisked  away  the  cloth  which  covered  her 
shoulders,  and  crying,  "  Behold  !  "  bowed  splendidly 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  121 

to  the  spectators,  and  without  waiting  for  criticism  or 
suggestion,  took  his  napoleon  and  went  his  way.  All 
that  day  the  work  of  his  skill  was  sacredly  guarded, 
and  the  custodian  of  the  treasure  went  about  with  her 
head  on  her  shoulders,  as  if  it  had  been  temporarily 
placed  in  her  keeping,  and  were  something  she  was 
not  at  all  used  to  taking  care  of.  More  than  once 
Mrs.  Elmore  had  to  warn  her  against  sinister  accidents. 
"  Eemember,  Lily,"  she  said,  "  that  if  anything  did 
happen,  NOTHING  could  be  done  to  save  you  ! "  In  spite 
of  himself  Elmore  shared  these  anxieties,  and  in  the 
depths  of  his  wonted  studies  he  found  himself  pur- 
sued and  harassed  by  vague  apprehensions,  which 
upon  analysis  proved  to  be  fears  for  Miss  Lily's 
hair.  It  was  a  great  moment  when  the  robe  came 
home  —  rather  late  —  from  the  dressmaker's,  and  was 
put  on  over  Lily's  head ;  but  from  this  thrilling  rite 
Elmore  was  of  course  excluded,  and  only  knew  of  it 
afterwards  by  hearsay.  He  did  not  see  her  till  she 
came  out  just  before  Hoskins  arrived  to  fetch  her 
away,  when  she  appeared  radiantly  perfect  in  her 
dress,  and  in  the  air  with  which  she  meant  to  carry 
it  off.  At  Mrs.  Elmore's  direction  she  paraded  daz- 
zlingly  up  and  down  the  room  a  number  of  times, 
bending  over  to  see  how  her  dress  hung,  as  she 
walked.  Mrs.  Elmore,  with  her  head  on  one  side,  scru- 


122  A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

tinized  her  in  every  detail,  and  Elrnore  regarded  her 
young  beauty  and  delight  with  a  pride  as  innocent  as 
her  own.  A  dim  regret,  evaporating  in  a  long  sigh, 
which  made  the  others  laugh,  recalled  him  to  himself, 
as  the  bell  rang  and  Hoskins  appeared.  He  was  re- 
ceived in  a  preconcerted  silence,  and  he  looked  from 
one  to  the  other  with  his  queer,  knowing  smile,  and 
took  in  the  whole  affair  without  a  word. 

"  Is  n't  it  a  pretty  idea  ? "  said  Mrs.  Elmore. 
"  Studied  from  an  antique  bas-relief,  or  just  the  same 
as  an  antique,  —  full  of  the  anguish  and  the  repose 
of  the  Laocoon." 

"  Mrs.  Elmore,"  said  the  sculptor,  "  you  're  too  many 
for  me.  I  reckon  the  procession  had  better  start  be- 
fore I  make  a  fool  of  myself.  Well !  "  This  was  all 
Hoskins  could  say ;  but  it  sufficed.  The  ladies  de- 
clared afterwards  that  if  he  had  added  a  word  more, 
it  would  have  spoiled  it.  They  had  expected  him  to 
go  to  the  ball  in  the  character  of  a  miner  perhaps,  or 
in  that  of  a  trapper  of  the  great  plains ;  but  he  had 
chosen  to  appear  more  naturally  as  a  courtier  of  the 
time  of  Louis  XIV.  "  When  you  go  in  for  a  dis- 
guise," he  explained, "  you  can't  make  it  too  complete ; 
and  I  consider  that  this  limp  of  mine  adds  the  last 
touch." 

"It's   no  use  to   sit  up  for  them,"  Mrs.  Elmore 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  123 

said,  when  she  and  her  husband  had  come  in  from 
calling  good  wishes  and  last  instructions  after  them 
from  the  balcony,  as  their  gondola  pushed  away. 
"  We  sha'n't  see  anything  more  of  them  till  morn- 
ing. Now  this,"  she  added,  "  is  something  like  the 
gayety  that  people  at  home  are  always  fancying  in 
Europe.  Why,  I  can  remember  when  I  used  to  im- 
agine that  American  tourists  figured  brilliantly  in 
salons  and  conversazioni,  and  spent  their  time  in  mask- 
ing and  throwing  confetti  in  carnival,  and  going  to 
balls  and  opera.  I  did  n't  know  what  American  tour- 
ists were,  then,  and  how  dismally  they  moped  about 
in  hotels  and  galleries  and  churches.  Arid  I  did  n't 
know  how  stupid  Europe  was  socially, —  how  per- 
fectly dead  and  buried  it  was,  especially  for  young 
people.  It  would  be  fun  if  things  happened  so  that 
Lily  never  found  it  out !  I  don't  think  two  offers 
already,  —  or  three,  if  you  count  Eose-Black,  —  are 
very  bad  for  any  girl ;  and  now  this  ball,  coming  right 
on  top  of  it,  where  she  will  see  hundreds  of  hand- 
some officers !  Well,  she  11  never  miss  Patmos,  at 
this  rate,  will  she  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  she  had  better  never  have  left  Patmos," 
suggested  Elmore  gravely. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Owen,"  said  his 
wife,  as  if  hurt. 


124  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  I  mean  tliat  it 's  a  great  pity  she  should  give  her- 
self up  to  the  same  frivolous  amusements  here  that 
she  had  there.  The  only  good  that  Europe  can  do 
American  girls  who  travel  here  is  to  keep  them  in 
total  exile  from  what  they  call  a  good  time,  —  from 
parties  and  attentions  and  flirtations;  to  force  them, 
through  the  hard  discipline  of  social  deprivation,  to 
take  some  interest  in  the  things  that  make  for  civil- 
ization, —  in  history,  in  art,  in  humanity." 

"Now,  there  I  differ  with  you,  Owen.  I  think 
American  girls  are  the  nicest  girls  in  the  world,  just 
as  they  are.  And  I  don't  see  any  harm  in  the  things 
you  think  are  so  awful.  You  Ve  lived  so  long  here 
among  your  manuscripts  that  you  Ve  forgotten  there 
is  any  such  time  as  the  present.  If  you  are  getting 
so  Europeanized,  I  think  the  sooner  we  go  home  the 
better." 

"  /  getting  Europeanized ! "  began  Elmore  indig- 
nantly. 

"Yes,  Europeanized !  And  I  don't  want  you  to  be 
so  severe  with  Lily,  Owen.  The  child  stands  in  terror 
of  you  now ;  and  if  you  keep  on  in  this  way,  she  can't 
draw  a  natural  breath  in  the  house." 

There  is  always  something  flattering,  at  first,  to  a 
gentle  and  peaceable  man  in  the  notion  of  being 
terrible  to  any  one ;  Elmore  melted  at  these  words, 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  125 

and  at  the  fear  that  he  might  have  been,  in  some 
way  that  he  could  not  think  of,  really  harsh. 

"  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  distress  her,"  he  began. 

"Well,  you  haven't  distressed  her  yet,"  his  wife 
relented.  "  Only  you  must  be  careful  not  to.  She 
was  going  to  be  very  circumspect,  Owen,  on  your 
account,  for  she  really  appreciates  the  interest  you 
take  in  her,  and  I  think  she  sees  that  it  won't  do  to 
be  at  all  free  with  strangers  over  here.  This  ball  will 
be  a  great  education  for  Lily, — a  great  education.  I  'm 
going  to  commence  a  letter  to  Sue  about  her  costume, 
and  all  that,  and  leave  it  open  to  finish  up  when 
Lily  gets  home." 

When  she  went  to  bed,  she  did  not  sleep  till  after 
the  time  when  the  girl  ought  to  have  come ;  and  when 
she  awoke  to  a  late  breakfast,  Lily  had  still  not  re- 
turned. By  eleven  o'clock  she  and  Elmore  had  passed 
the  stage  of  accusing  themselves,  and  then  of  accusing 
each  other,  for  allowing  Lily  to  go  in  the  way  they 
had ;  and  had  come  to  the  question  of  what  they  had 
better  do,  and  whether  it  was  practicable  to  send  to 
the  Spanish  consulate  and  ask  what  had  become  of 
her.  They  had  resigned  themselves  to  waiting  for 
one  half-hour  longer,  when  they  heard  her  voice  at 
the  water-gate,  gayly  forbidding  Hoskius  to  come  up ; 
and  running  out  upon  the  balcony,  Mrs.  Elmore  had 


126  A  FEAEFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

a  glimpse  of  the  courtier,  very  tawdry  by  daylight, 
re-entering  his  gondola,  and  had  only  time  to  turn 
about  when  Lily  burst  laughing  into  the  room. 

"  Oh,  don't  look  at  me,  Professor  Elmore ! "  she 
cried.  "  I  'm  literally  danced  to  rags  ! " 

Her  dress  and  hair  were  splashed  with  drippings 
from  the  wax  candles ;  she  was  wildly  decorated  with 
favors  from  the  German,  and  one  of  these  had  been 
used  to  pin  up  a  rent  which  the  spur  of  a  hussar  had 
made  in  her  robe;  her  hair  had  escaped  from  its 
fastenings  during  the  night,  and  in  putting  it  back 
she  had  broken  the  star  in  her  fillet ;  it  was  now  kept 
in  place  by  a  bit  of  black-and-yellow  cord  which  an 
officer  had  lent  her.  "  He  said  he  should  claim  it  of 
me  the  first  time  we  met,"  she  exclaimed  excitedly. 
"  Why,  Professor  Elmore,"  she  implored  with  a  laugh, 
"  don't  look  at  me  so ! " 

Grief  and  indignation  were  in  his  heart.  "You 
look  like  the  spectre  of  last  night,"  he  said  with 
dreamy  severity,  and  as  if  he  saw  her  merely  as  a 
vision. 

"  Why,  that 's  the  way  I  feel  !  "  she  answered ;  and 
with  a  reproachful  "  Owen ! "  his  wife  followed  her 
flight  to  her  room. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  127 


XL 

ELMORE  went  out  for  a  long  walk,  from  which  he 
returned  disconsolate  at  dinner.  He  was  one  of 
those  people,  common  enough  in  our  Puritan  civiliza- 
tion, who  would  rather  forego  any  pleasure  than  incur 
the  reaction  which  must  follow  with  all  the  keenness 
of  remorse;  and  he  always  mechanically  pitied  (for 
the  operation  was  not  a  rational  one)  such  unhappy 
persons  as  he  saw  enjoying  themselves.  But  he  had 
not  meant  to  add  bitterness  to  the  anguish  which  Lily 
would  necessarily  feel  in  retrospect  of  the  night's 
gayety ;  he  had  not  known  that  he  was  recognizing,  by 
those  unsparing  words  of  his,  the  nervous  misgivings 
in  the  girl's  heart.  He  scarcely  dared  ask,  as  he  sat 
down  at  table  with  Mrs.  Elmore  alone,  whether  Lily 
were  asleep. 

<c Asleep?"  she  echoed,  in  a  low  tone  of  mystery. 
"I  hope  so." 

"  Celia,  Celia ! "  he  cried  in  despair.     "  What  shall 
I  do  ?     I  feel  terribly  at  what  I  said  to  her." 


128  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  Sh  !  At  what  you  said  to  her  ?  Oh  yes  !  Yes, 
that  was  cruel.  But  there  is  so  much  else,  poor 
child,  that  I  had  forgotten  that." 

He  let  his  plate  of  soup  stand  untasted.  "Why — 
why,"  he  faltered,  "  did  n't  she  enjoy  herself  ? "  And 
a  historian  of  Venice,  whose  mind  should  have  been 
wholly  engaged  in  philosophizing  the  republic's  diffi- 
cult past,  hung  abjectly  upon  the  question  whether  a 
young  girl  had  or  had  not  had  a  good  time  at  a  ball. 

"Yes.  Oh,  yes!  She  enjoyed  herself — if  that's 
all  you  require,"  replied  his  wife.  "  Of  course  she 
wouldn't  have  stayed  so  late  if  she  hadn't  enjoyed 
herself." 

" No"  he  said  in  a  tone  which  he  tried  to  make 
leading;  but  his  wife  refused  to  be  led  by  indirect 
methods.  She  ate  her  soup,  but  in  a  mariner  to  carry 
increasing  bitterness  to  Elmore  with  every  spoonful." 

"  Come,  Celia  ! "  he  cried  at  last,  "  tell  me  what  has 
happened.  You  know  how  wretched  this  makes  me. 
Tell  me  it,  whatever  it  is.  Of  course,  I  must  know 
it  in  the  end.  Are  there  any  new  complications  ? " 

"  No  new  complications,"  said  his  wife,  as  if  resent- 
ing the  word.  "  But  you  make  such  a  bugbear  of  the 
least  little  matter  that  there 's  no  encouragement  to 
tell  you  anything." 

"  Excuse  me,"  he  retorted,  "  I  have  n't  made  a  bug- 
bear of  this." 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  129 

"You  haven't  had  the  opportunity."  This  was 
so  grossly  unjust  that  Elmore  merely  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  remained  silent.  When  it  finally  ap- 
peared that  he  was  not  going  to  ask  anything  more, 
his  wife  added :  "  If  you  could  listen,  like  any  one 
else,  and  not  interrupt  with  remarks  that  distort  all 
one's  ideas  "  —  Then,  as  he  persisted  in  his  silence, 
she  relented  still  further.  "  Why,  of  course,  as  you 
say,  you  will  have  to  know  it  in  the  end.  But  I  can 
tell  you,  to  begin  with,  Owen,  that  it 's  nothing  you 
can  do  anything  about,  or  take  hold  of  in  any  way. 
Whatever  it  is,  it's  done  and  over;  so  it  needn't 
distress  you  at  all." 

"  Ah,  I  've  known  some  things  done  and  over  that 
distressed  me  a  great  deal,"  he  suggested. 

"The  princess  wasn't  so  very  young,  after  all," 
said  Mrs.  Elmore,  as  if  this  had  been  the  point  in 
dispute,  "  but  very  fat  and  jolly,  and  very  kind.  She 
was  n't  in  costume ;  but  there  was  a  young  countess 
with  her,  helping  receive,  who  appeared  as  Night,  — 
black  tulle,  you  know,  with  silver  stars.  The  prin- 
cess seemed  to  take  a  great  fancy  to  Lily,  —  the  Eus- 
sians  always  have  sympathized  with  us  in  the  war,  — 
and  all  the  time  she  was  n't  dancing,  the  princess  kept 
her  by  her,  holding  her  hand  and  patting  it.  The 
officers  —  hundreds  of  them,  in  their  white  uniforms 


130  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

and  those  magnificent  hussar  dresses  —  were  very 
obsequious  to  the  princess,  and  Lily  had  only  too 
many  partners.  She  says  you  can't  imagine  how 
splendid  the  scene  was,  with  all  those  different  cos- 
tumes, and  the  rooms  a  perfect  blaze  of  waxlights ; 
the  windows  were  battened,  so  that  you  could  n't  tell 
when  it  carne  daylight,  and  she  hadn't  any  idea 
how  the  time  was  passing.  They  were  not  all  in 
masks  ;  and  there  did  n't  seem  to  be  any  regular  hour 
for  unmasking.  She  can't  tell  just  when  the  supper 
was,  but  she  thinks  it  must  have  been  towards  morn- 
ing. She  says  Mr.  Hoskins  got  on  capitally,  and 
everybody  seemed  to  like  him,  he  was  so  jolly  and 
good-natured ;  and  when  they  found  out  that  he  had 
been  wounded  in  the  war,  they  made  quite  a  belle  of 
him,  as  he  called  it.  The  princess  made  a  point  of 
introducing  all  the  officers  to  Lily  that  came  up  after 
they  unmasked.  They  paid  her  the  greatest  atten- 
tion, and  you  can  easily  see  that  she  was  the  pret- 
tiest girl  there." 

"  I  can  believe  that  without  seeing,"  said  Elmore, 
with  magnanimous  pride  in  the  loveliness  that  had 
made  him  so  much  trouble.  "  Well  ? " 

"  Well,  they  could  n't  any  of  them  get  the  hang,  as 
Mr.  Hoskins  said,  of  the  character  she  came  in,  for  a 
good  while ;  but  when  they  did,  they  thought  it  was 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  131 

the  best  idea  there :  and  it  was  all  your  idea,  Owen," 
said  Mrs.  Elmore,  in  accents  of  such  tender  pride 
that  he  knew  she  must  now  be  approaching  the  diffi- 
cult passage  of  her  narration.  "  It  was  so  perfectly 
new  and  unconventional.  She  got  on  very  well 
speaking  Italian  with  the  officers,  for  she  knew  as 
much  of  it  as  they  did." 

Here  Mrs.  Elmore  paused,  and  glanced  hesitatingly 
at  her  husband.  "They  only  made  one  little  mis- 
take ;  but  that  was  at  the  beginning,  and  they  soon 
got  over  it."  Elmore  suffered,  but  he  did  not  ask 
what  it  was,  and  his  wife  went  on  with  smooth  cau- 
tion. "  Lily  thought  it  was  just  as  it  is  at  home,  and 
she  must  n't  dance  with  any  one  unless  they  had 
been  introduced.  So  after  the  first  dance  with  the 
Spanish  consul,  as  her  escort,  a  young  officer  .came 
up  and  asked  her ;  and  she  refused,  for  she  thought  it 
was  a  great  piece  of  presumption.  Afterwards  the 
princess  told  her  she  could  dance  with  any  one,  intro- 
duced or  not,  and  so  she  did ;  and  pretty  soon  she  saw 
this  first  officer  looking  at  her  very  angrily,  and  going 
about  speaking  to  others  and  glancing  toward  her. 
She  felt  badly  about  it,  when  she  saw  how  it  was ; 
and  she  got  Mr.  Hoskins  to  go  and  speak  to  him. 
Mr.  Hoskins  asked  him  if  he  spoke  English,  and  the 
officer  said  No ;  and  it  seems  that  he  did  n't  know 


132  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

Italian  either,  and  Mr.  Hoskins  tried  him  in  Spanish, 
—  he  picked  up  a  little  in  New  Mexico,  —  but  the 
officer  did  n't  understand  it ;  and  all  at  once  it  oc- 
curred to  Mr.  Hoskins  to  say,  '  Parlez-vous  Francois  ? ' 
and  says  the  officer  instantly,  '  Oui,  monsieur.' " 

"  Of  course  the  man  knew  French.  He  ought  to 
have  tried  him  with  that  in  the  beginning.  What 
did  Hoskins  say  then  ? "  asked  Elinore  impatiently. 

"  He  did  n't  say  anything  :  that  was  all  the  French 
he  knew." 

Elm  ore  broke  into  a  cry  of  laughter,  and  laughed 
on  and  on  with  the  wild  excess  of  a  sad  man  when 
once  he  unpacks  his  heart  in  that  way.  His  wife  did 
not,  perhaps,  feel  the  absurdity  as  keenly  as  he,  but 
she  gladly  laughed  with  him,  for  it  smoothed  her  way 
to  have  him  in  this  humor.  "  Mr.  Hoskins  just  took 
him  by  the  arm,  and  said,  *  Here !  you  come  along 
with  me,'  and  led  him  up  to  the  princess,  where  Lily 
was  sitting ;  and  when  the  princess  had  explained  to 
him,  Lily  rose,  and  mustered  up  enough  French  to 
say,  '  Je  vous  prie,  monsieur,  de  danser  avec  moi,'  and 
after  that  they  were  the  greatest  friends." 

"  That  was  very  pretty  in  her  ;  it  was  sovereignly 
gracious,"  said  Elmore. 

"  Oh,  if  an  American  girl  is  left  to  manage  for  her- 
self she  can  always  manage ! "  cried  Mrs.  Elmore. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  133 

"  Well,  and  what  else  ?  "  asked  her  husband. 

"  Oli,  /  don't  know  that  it  amounts  to  anything," 
said  Mrs.  Elmore ;  but  she  did  not  delay  further. 

It  appeared  from  what  she  went  on  to  say  that 
in  the  German,  which  began  not  long  after  mid- 
night, there  was  a  figure  fancifully  called  the  sym- 
phony, in  which  musical  toys  were  distributed  among 
the  dancers  in  pairs  ;  the  possessor  of  a  small  pandean 
pipe,  or  tin  horn,  went  about  sounding  it,  till  he  found 
some  lady  similarly  equipped,  when  he  demanded  her 
in  the  dance.  In  this  way  a  tall  mask,  to  whom  a 
penny  trumpet  had  fallen,  was  stalking  to  and  fro 
among  the  waltzers,  blowing  the  silly  plaything  with 
a  disgusted  air,  when  Lily,  all  unconscious  of  him, 
where  she  sat  with  her  hand  in  that  of  her  faithful 
princess,  breathed  a  responsive  note.  The  mask  was 
instantly  at  her  side,  and  she  was  whirling  away  in 
the  waltz.  She  tried  to  make  him  out,  but  she  had 
already  danced  with  so  many  people  that  she  was 
unable  to  decide  whether  she  had  seen  this  mask  be- 
fore. He  was  not  disguised  except  by  the  little  visor 
of  black  silk,  coming  down  to  the  point  of  his  nose ; 
his  blond  whiskers  escaped  at  either  side,  and  his 
blond  moustache  swept  beneath,  like  the  whiskers 
and  moustaches  of  fifty  other  officers  present,  and  he 
did  not  speak.  This  was  a  permissible  caprice  of  his, 


134  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

but  if  she  were  resolved  to  make  him  speak,  this  also 
was  a  permissible  caprice.  She  made  a  whole  turn 
of  the  room  in  studying  up  the  Italian  sentence  with 
which  she  assailed  him :  "  Perdoni,  Maschera ;  ma 
cosa  ha  detto  ?  Non  ho  ben  inteso." 

"  Speak  English,  Mask,"  came  the  reply.  "  I  did 
not  say  anything."  It  came  certainly  with  a  German 
accent,  and  with  a  foreigner's  deliberation;  but  it 
came  at  once,  and  clearly. 

The  English  astonished  her,  and  somehow  it  daunt- 
ed her,  for  the  mask  spoke  very  gravely ;  but  she 
would  not  let  him  imagine  that  he  had  put  her  down, 
and  she  rejoined  laughingly,  "  Oh,  I  knew  that  you 
had  n't  spoken,  but  I  thought  I  would  make  you." 

"  You  think  you  can  make  one  do  what  you  will  ? " 
asked  the  mask. 

"  Oh,  no.  I  don't  think  I  could  make  you  tell  me 
who  you  are,  though  I  should  like  to  make  you." 

"  And  why  should  you  wish  to  know  me  ?  If  you 
met  me  in  Piazza,  you  would  not  recognize  my 
salutation." 

"  How  do  you  know  that  ?  "  demanded  Lily.  "  I 
don't  know  what  you  mean." 

"  Oh,  it  is  understood  yet  already,"  answered  the 
mask,  "  Your  compatriot,  with  whom  you  live, 
wishes  to  be  well  seen  by  the  Italians,  and  he  would 
not  let  you  bow  to  an  Austrian." 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  135 

"  That  is  not  so,"  exclaimed  Lily  indignantly. 
"  Professor  Elmore  would  n  't  be  so  mean  ;  and  if  he 
would,  /  should  n't."  She  was  frightened,  but  she 
felt  her  spirit  rising,  too.  "You  seem  to  know  so 
well  who  I  am :  do  you  think  it  is  fair  for  you  to 
keep  me  in  ignorance  ?  " 

"I  cannot  remain  masked  without  your  leave. 
Shall  I  unmask  ?  Do  you  insist  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  replied.  "  You  will  have  to  unmask 
at  supper,  and  then  I  shall  see  you.  I  'm  not  im- 
patient. I  prefer  to  keep  you  for  a  mystery." 

"  You  will  be  a  mystery  to  me  even  when  you  un- 
mask," replied  the  mask  gravely. 

Lily  was  ill  at  ease,  and  she  gave  a  little,  unsuc- 
cessful laugh.  "  You  seem  to  take  the  mystery  very 
coolly,"  she  said  in  default  of  anything  else. 

"  I  have  studied  the  American  manner,"  replied  the 
mask.  "In  America  they  take  everything  coolly: 
life  and  death,  love  and  hate  —  all  things." 

"  How  do  you  know  that  ?  You  have  never  been 
in  America." 

"That  is  not  necessary,  if  the  Americans  come 
here  to  show  us." 

"  They  are  not  true  Americans,  if  they  show  you 
that,"  cried  the  girl. 

"  No  ? " 


136  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  But  I  see  that  you  are  only  amusing  yourself." 

"  And  have  you  never  amused  yourself  with  me  ?  * 

"  How  could  I,"  she  demanded,  "  if  I  never  saw 
you  before  ?  " 

"  But  are  you  sure  of  that  ? "  She  did  not  answer, 
for  in  this  masquerade  banter  she  had  somehow  been 
growing  unhappy.  "  Shall  I  prove  to  you  that  you 
have  seen  me  before  ?  You  dare  not  let  me  unmask." 

"  Oh,  I  can  wait  till  supper.  I  shall  know  then 
that  I  have  never  seen  you  before.  I  forbid  you  to 
unmask  till  supper !  Will  you  obey  ? "  she  cried 
anxiously. 

"I  have  obeyed  in  harder  things,"  replied  the 
mask. 

She  refused  to  recognize  anything  but  meaningless 
badinage  in  his  words.  "  Oh,  as  a  soldier,  yes  !  — 
you  must  be  used  to  obeying  orders."  He  did  not 
reply,  and  she  added,  releasing  her  hand  and  slipping 
it  into  his  arm,  "  I  am  tired  now ;  will  you  take  me 
back  to  the  princess  ?  " 

He  led  her  silently  to  her  place,  and  left  her  with 
a  profound  bow. 

"  Now,"  said  the  princess,  "  they  shall  give  you  a 
little  time  to  breathe.  I  will  not  let  them  make  you 
dance. every  minute.  They  are  indiscreet.  You  shall 
not  take  any  of  their  musical  instruments,  and  so 
you  can  fairly  escape  till  supper." 


A  FEAEFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  137 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Lily  absently,  "  that  will  be 
the  best  way  " ;  and  she  sat  languidly  watching  the 
dancers.  A  young  naval  officer  who  spoke  English 
ran  across  the  floor  to  her. 

"  Come,"  he  cried,  "  I  shall  have  twenty  duels  on 
my  hands  if  I  let  you  rest  here,  when  there  are  so 
many  who  wish  to  dance  with  you."  He  threw  a 
pipe  into  her  lap,  and  at  the  same  moment  a  pipe 
sounded  from  the  other  side  of  the  room. 

"  This  is  a  conspiracy  !  "  exclaimed  the  girl.  "  I 
will  not  have  it !  I  am  not  going  to  dance  any  more." 
She  put  the  pipe  back  into  his  hands ;  he  placed  it 
to  his  lips,  and  sounded  it  several  times,  and  then 
dropped  it  into  her  lap  again  with  a  laugh,  and  van- 
ished in  the  crowd. 

"That  little  fellow  is  a  rogue,"  said  the  princess. 
"  But  he  is  not  so  bad  as  some  of  them.  Monsieur," 
she  cried  in  French  to  the  fair-whiskered,  tall  mask 
who  had  already  presented  himself  before  Lily,  "  I 
will  not  permit  it,  if  it  is  for  a  trick.  You  must  un- 
mask. I  will  dispense  mademoiselle  from  dancing 
with  you." 

The  mask  did  not  reply,  but  turned  his  eyes  upon 
Lily  with  an  appeal  which  the  holes  of  the  visor 
seemed  to  intensify.  "  It  is  a  promise,"  she  said  to 
the  princess,  rising  in  a  sort  of  fascination.  "  I  have 
forbidden  him  to  unmask  before  supper." 


138  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  Oh,  very  Well,"  answered  the  princess,  "  if  that  is 
the  case.  But  make  him  bring  you  back  soon:  it 
is  almost  time." 

"Did  you  hear,  Mask?"  asked  the  girl,  as  they 
waltzed  away.  "  I  will  only  make  two  turns  of  the 
room  with  you." 

"  Perdoni  ? " 

"  This  is  too  bad  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  I  will  not  be 
trifled  with  in  this  way.  Either  speak  English,  or 
unmask  at  once." 

The  mask  again  answered  in  Italian,  with  a  re- 
peated apology  for  not  understanding.  "  You  under- 
stand very  well,"  retorted  Lily,  now  really  indignant, 
"  and  you  know  that  this  passes  a  jest." 

"  Can  you  speak  German  ?  "  asked  the  mask  in  that 
tongue. 

"  Yes,  a  little,  but  I  do  not  choose  to  speak  it.  If 
you  have  anything  to  say  to  me  you  can  say  it  in 
English." 

"  I  cannot  understand  English,"  replied  the  mask, 
still  in  German,  and  now  Lily  thought  the  voice 
seemed  changed ;  but  she  clung  to  her  belief  that  it 
was  some  hoax  played  at  her  expense,  and  she  con- 
tinued her  efforts  to  make  him  answer  her  in  English. 
The  two  turns  round  the  room  had  stretched  to  half 
a  dozen  in  this  futile  task,  but  she  felt  herself  power- 


A   FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  139 

less  to  leave  the  mask,  who  for  his  part  betrayed 
signs  of  embarrassment,  as  if  he  had  undertaken  a  ruse 
of  which  he  repented.  A  confused  movement  in  the 
crowd  and  a  sudden  cessation  of  the  music  recalled 
her  to  herself,  and  she  now  took  her  partner's  arm 
and  hurried  with  him  toward  the  place  where  she  had 
left  the  princess.  But  the  princess  had  already  gone 
into  the  supper-room,  and  she  had  no  other  recourse 
than  to  follow  with  the  stranger. 

As  they  entered  the  supper-room  she  removed  her 
little  visor,  and  she  felt,  rather  than  saw,  the  mask 
put  up  his  hand  and  lift  away  his  own :  he  turned 
his  head,  and  looked  down  upon  her  with  the  face  of 
a  man  she  had  never  seen  before. 

"  Ah,  you  are  there  ! "  she  heard  the  princess's  voice 
calling  to  her  from  one  of  the  tables.  "  How  tired 
you  look !  Here  —  here  !  I  will  make  you  drink  this 
glass  of  wine." 

The  officer  who  brought  her  the  wine  gave  her  his 
arm  and  led  her  to  the  princess,  and  the  late  mask 
mixed  with  the  two-score  other  tall  blond  officers. 

The  night  which  stretched  so  far  into  the  day 
ended  at  last,  and  she  followed  Hoskins  down  to  their 
gondola.  He  entered  the  boat  first,  to  give  her  his  hand 
in  stepping  from  the  riva  ;  at  the  same  moment  she 
involuntarily  turned  at  the  closing  of  the  door  behind 


140  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

her,  and  found  at  her  side  the  tall  blond  mask,  or  one 
of  the  masks,  if  there  were  two  who  had  danced  with 
her.  He  caught  her  hand  suddenly  to  his  lips,  and 
kissed  it. 

"  Adieu  —  forgive  !  "  he  murmured  in  English,  and 
then  vanished  indoors  again. 

"  Owen,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore  dramatically  at  the  end  of 
her  narration,  "  who  do  you  think  it  could  have  been  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  doubt  as  to  who  it  was,  Celia,"  replied 
Elmore,  with  a  heat  evidently  quite  unexpected  to  his 
wife,  "  and  if  Lily  has  not  been  seriously  annoyed  by 
the  matter,  I  am  glad  that  it  has  happened.  I  have 
had  my  regrets  —  my  doubts  —  whether  I  did  not 
dismiss  that  man's  pretensions  too  curtly,  too  un- 
kindly. But  I  am  convinced  now  that  we  did  ex- 
actly right,  and  that  she  was  wise  never  to  bestow 
another  thought  upon  him.  A  man  capable  of  con- 
triving a  petty  persecution  of  this  sort  —  of  pursuing 
a  young  girl  who  had  rejected  him  in  this  shameless 
fashion,  —  is  no  gentleman." 

"  It  was  a  persecution,"  said  Mrs.  Elmore,  with  a 
dazed  air,  as  if  this  view  of  the  case  had  not  oc- 
curred to  her. 

"  A  miserable,  unworthy  persecution  !  "  repeated 
her  husband. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  141 

"  Yes." 

"  And  we  are  well  rid  of  him.  He  has  relieved  me 
by  this  last  performance,  immensely ;  and  I  trust  that 
if  Lily  had  any  secret  lingering  regrets,  he  has  given 
her  a  final  lesson.  Though  I  must  say,  in  justice  to 
her,  poor  girl,  she  did  n't  seem  to  need  it." 

Mrs.  Elrnore  listened  with  a  strange  abeyance ;  she 
looked  beaten  and  bewildered,  while  he  vehemently 
uttered  these  words.  She  could  not  meet  his  eyes, 
with  her  consciousness  of  having  her  intended  ro- 
mance thrown  back  upon  her  hands ;  and  he  seemed 
in  nowise  eager  to  meet  hers,  for  whatever  conscious- 
ness of  his  own.  "  Well,  it  is  n't  certain  that  he  was 
the  one,  after  all,"  she  said. 


142  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 


XII. 

LONG  after  the  ball  Lily  seemed  to  Elm  ore's  eye 
not  to  have  recovered  her  former  tone.  He  thought 
she  went  about  languidly,  and  that  she  was  fitful 
and  dreamy,  breaking  from  moods  of  unwonted  ab- 
straction in  bursts  of  gayety  as  unnatural.  She  did 
not  talk  much  of  the  ball ;  he  could  not  be  sure  that 
she  ever  recurred  to  it  of  her  own  motion.  Hoskins 
continued  to  come  a  great  deal  to  the  house,  and  she 
often  talked  with  him  for  a  whole  evening ;  Elinore 
fancied  she  was  very  serious  in  these  talks. 

He  wondered  if  Lily  avoided  him,  or  whether  this 
was  only  an  illusion  of  his  ;  but  in  any  case,  he  was 
glad  that  the  girl  seemed  to  find  so  much  comfort  in 
Hoskins's  company,  and  when  it  occurred  to  him  he 
always  said  something  to  encourage  his  visits.  His 
wife  was  singularly  quiescent  at  this  time,  as  if,  having 
accomplished  all  she  wished  in  Lily's  presence  at  the 
princess's  ball,  she  was  willing  to  rest  for  a  while  from 
further  social  endeavor.  Life  was  falling  into  the  dull 


A  FEAKFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  143 

routine  again,  and  after  the  past  shocks  his  nerves 
were  gratefully  clothing  themselves  in  the  old  habits 
of  tranquillity  once  more,  when  one  day  a  letter  came 
from  the  overseers  of  Patmos  University,  offering  him 
the  presidency  of  that  institution  on  condition  of  his 
early  return.  The  board  had  in  view  certain  changes, 
intended  to  bring  the  university  abreast  with  the 
times,  which  they  hoped  would  meet  his  approval. 

Among  these  was  a  modification  of  the  name, 
which  was  hereafter  to  be  Patmos  University  and 
Military  Institute.  The  board  not  only  believed  that 
popular  feeling  demanded  the  introduction  of  mili- 
tary drill  into  the  college,  but  they  felt  that  a  college 
which  had  been  closed  at  the  beginning  of  the  Ke- 
bellion,  through  the  dedication  of  its  president  and 
nearly  all  its  students  to  the  war,  could  in  no  way  so 
gracefully  recognize  this  proud  fact  of  its  history  as 
by  hereafter  making  war  one  of  the  arts  which  it 
taught.  The  board  explained  that  of  course  Mr.  El- 
more  would  not  be  expected  to  take  charge  of  this 
branch  of  instruction  at  once.  A  competent  military 
assistant  would  be  provided,  and  continued  under 
him  as  long  as  he  should  deem  his  services  essential. 
The  letter  closed  with  a  cordial  expression  of  the  de- 
sire of  Elmore's  old  friends  to  have  him  once  more 
in  their  midst,  at  the  close  of  labors  which  they  were 


144  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

sure  would  do  credit  to  the  good  old  university  and 
to  the  whole  city  of  Patmos. 

Elmore  read  this  letter  at  breakfast,  and  silently 
handed  it  to  his  wife :  they  were  alone,  for  Lily,  as 
now  often  happened,  had  not  yet  risen.  "  Well  ? "  he 
said,  when  she  had  read  it  in  her  turn.  She  gave  it 
back  to  him  with  a  look  in  her  dimmed  eyes  which 
he  could  not  mistake.  "  I  see  there  is  no  doubt  of 
your  feeling,  Celia,"  he  added. 

"  I  don't  wish  to  urge  you,"  she  replied,  "  but  yes,  I 
should  like  to  go  back.  Yes,  I  am  homesick.  I  have 
been  afraid  of  it  before,  but  this  chance  of  returning 
makes  it  certain." 

"  And  you  see  nothing  ridiculous  in  my  taking  the 
presidency  of  a  military  institute  ? " 

"They  say  expressly  that  they  don't  expect  you 
to  give  instruction  in  that  branch." 

"  No,  not  immediately,  it  seems,"  he  said,  with  his 
pensive  irony.  "  And  the  history  ? " 

"  Have  n't  you  almost  got  notes  enough  ? " 

Elmore  laughed  sadly.  "  I  have  been  here  two 
years.  It  would  take  me  twenty  years  to  write  such 
a  history  of  Venice  as  I  ought  not  to  be  ashamed  to 
write ;  it  would  take  me  five  years  to  scamp  it  as  I 
thought  of  doing.  Oh,  I  dare  say  I  had  better  go 
back.  I  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  money  to 


A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  145 

give  to  a  work  I  never  was  fit  for,  —  of  whose  mag- 
nitude even  I  was  unable  to  conceive." 

"  Don't  say  that ! "  cried  his  wife,  with  the  old 
sympathy.  "  You  will  write  it  yet,  I  know  you  will. 
I  would  rather  spend  all  my  days  in  this  —  watery 
mausoleum  than  have  you  talk  so,  Owen ! " 

"  Thank  you,  my  dear ;  but  the  work  won't  be  lost 
even  if  I  give  it  up  at  this  point.  I  can  do  some- 
thing with  my  material,  I  suppose.  And  you  know 
that  if  I  did  n't  wish  to  give  up  my  project  I  could  n't. 
It 's  a  sign  of  my  unfitness  for  it  that  I  'in  able  to 
abandon  it.  The  man  who  is  born  to  write  the  his- 
tory of  Venice  will  have  no  volition  in  the  matter : 
he  cannot  leave  it,  and  he  will  not  die  till  he  has  fin- 
ished it."  He  feebly  crushed  a  bit  of  bread  in  his 
fingers  as  he  ended  with  this  burst  of  feeling,  and 
he  shook  his  head  in  sad  negation  to  his  wife's  tender 
protest,  —  "  Oh,  you  will  come  back  some  day  to  fin- 
ish it!" 

"No  one  ever  comes  back  to  finish  a  history  of 
Venice,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  will,"  she  returned.  "  But  you  need 
the  rest  from  this  kind  of  work,  now,  just  as  you 
needed  rest  from  your  college  work  before.  You 
need  a  change  of  standpoint,  —  and  the  American 
standpoint  will  be  the  very  thing  for  you." 

10 


146  A  FEAEFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"  Perhaps  so,  perhaps  so,"  he  admitted.  "  At  any 
rate,  this  is  a  handsome  offer,  and  most  kindly  made, 
Celia.  It's  a  great  compliment.  I  didn't  suppose 
they  valued  me  so  much." 

"  Of  course  they  valued  you,  and  they  will  be  very 
glad  to  get  you.  I  call  it  merely  letting  the  historic 
material  ripen  in  your  mind,  or  else  I  should  n't  let 
you  accept.  And  I  shall  be  glad  to  go  home,  Owen, 
on  Lily's  account.  The  child  is  getting  no  good  here : 
she 's  drooping." 

"Drooping?" 

"  Yes.     Don't  you  see  how  she  mopes  about  ? " 

"  I  'm  afraid  —  that  —  I  have  —  noticed." 

He  was  going  to  ask  why  she  was  drooping ;  but 
he  could  not.  He  said,  recurring  to  the  letter  of  the 
overseers,  "  So  Patmos  is  a  city." 

"Of  course  it  is  by  this  time,"  said  his  wife,  "  with 
all  that  prosperity  ! " 

Now  that  they  were  determined  to  go,  their  little 
preparations  for  return  were  soon  made ;  and  a  week 
after  Elmore  had  written  to  accept  the  offer  of  the 
overseers,  they  were  ready  to  follow  his  letter  home. 
Their  decision  was  a  blow  to  Hoskins  under  which 
he  visibly  suffered;  and  they  did  not  realize  till 
then. in  what  fond  and  affectionate  friendship  he  held 
them.  He  now  frankly  spent  his  whole  time  with 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  147 

them ;  he  disconsolately  helped  them  pack,  and  he 
did  all  that  a  consul  can  do  to  secure,  free  entry  for 
some  objects  of  Venice  that  they  wished  to  get  in 
without  payment  of  duties  at  New  York. 

He  said  a  dozen  times,  "  I  don 't  know  what  I  will 
do  when  you  're  gone" ;  and  toward  the  last  he  alarmed 
them  for  his  own  interests  by  beginning  to  say,  "  Well, 
I  don't  see  but  what  I  will  have  to  go  along." 

The  last  night  but  one  Lily  felt  it  her  duty  to  talk 
to  him  very  seriously  about  his  future  and  what  he 
owed  to  it.  She  told  him  that  he  must  stay  in  Italy 
till  he  could  bring  home  something  that  would  honor 
the  great,  precious,  suffering  country  for  which  he 
had  fought  so  nobly,  and  which  they  all  loved.  She 
made  the  tears  come  into  her  eyes  as  she  spoke,  and 
when  she  said  that  she  should  always  be  proud  to 
be  associated  with  one  of  his  works,  Hoskins's  voice 
was  quite  husky  in  replying :  "  Is  that  the  way  you 
feel  about  it  ? "  He  went  away  promising  to  remain 
at  least  till  he  finished  his  bas-relief  of  Westward, 
and  his  figure  of  the  Pacific  Slope;  and  the  next 
morning  he  sent  around  by  a  facchino  a  note  to 
Lily. 

She  ran  it  through  in  the  presence  of  the  Elmores, 
before  whom  she  received  it,  and  then,  with  a  cry 
of  "  I  think  Mr.  Hoskins  is  too  lad  ! "  she  threw  it 


148  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

into  Mrs.  Elmore's  lap,  and,  catching  her  handkerchief 
to  her  eyes,  she  broke  into  tears  and  went  out  of  the 
room.  The  note  read :  — 

DEAR  Miss  LILY,  —  Your  kind  interest  in  me  gives  me 
courage  to  say  something  that  will  very  likely  make  me 
hateful  to  you  forevermore.  But  I  have  got  to  say  it,  and 
you  have  got  to  know  it ;  and  it 's  all  the  worse  for  me  if  you 
have  never  suspected  it.  I  want  to  give  my  whole  life  to 
you,  wherever  and  however  you  will  have  it.  With  you  by 
my  side,  I  feel  as  if  I  could  really  do  something  that  you 
would  not  be  ashamed  of  in  sculpture,  and  I  believe  that  I 
could  make  you  happy.  I  suppose  I  believe  this  because  I 
love  you  very  dearly,  and  I  know  the  chances  are  that  you 
will  not  think  this  is  reason  enough.  But  I  would  take 
one  chance  in  a  million,  and  be  only  too  glad  of  it.  I  hope  it 
will  not  worry  you  to  read  this:  as  I  said  before,  I  had  to  tell 
you.  Perhaps  it  won't  be  altogether  a  surprise.  I  might  go 
on,  but  I  suppose  that  until  I  hear  from  you  I  had  better  give 
you  as  little  of  my  eloquence  as  possible. 

CLAY  HOSKINS. 

"  Well,  upon  my  word,"  said  Elmore,  to  whom  his 
wife  had  transferred  the  letter,  "this  is  very  indeli- 
cate of  Hoskins !  I  must  say5  I  expected  something 
better  of  him."  He  looked  at  the  note  with  a  face  of 
disgust. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  had  a  right  to  expect 
anything  better  of  him,  as  you  call  it,"  retorted  his 
wife.  "  It 's  perfectly  natural." 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  149 

"  Natural ! "  cried  Elmore.  "  To  put  this  upon  us  at 
the  last  moment,  when  he  knows  how  much  trouble 
I've " 

Lily  re-entered  the  room  as  precipitately  as  she  had 
left  it,  and  saved  him  from  betraying  himself  as  to 
the  extent  of  his  confidences  to  Hoskins.  "  Professor 
Elmore,"  she  said,  bending  her  reddened  eyes  upon 
him,  "I  want  you  to  answer  this  letter  for  me ;  and  I 
don  't  want  you  to  write  as  you  —  I  mean,  don 't 
make  it  so  cutting  —  so  —  so  —  Why,  I  like  Mr! 
Hoskins  !  He  's  been  so  kind  !  And  if  you  said 
anything  to  wound  his  feelings — " 

"  I  shall  not  do  that,  you  may  be  sure ;  because,  for 
one  reason,  I  shall  say  nothing  at  all  to  him,"  replied 
Elmore. 

"  You  won 't  write  to  him  ? "  she  gasped. 

"No." 

"  Why,  what  shall  I  do-o-o-o  ? "  demanded  Lily, 
prolonging  the  syllable  in  a  burst  of  grief  and  as- 
tonishment. 

"  I  don't  know,"  answered  Elmore. 

"  Owen,"  cried  his  wife,  interfering  for  the  first 
time,  in  response  to  the  look  of  appeal  that  Lily 
turned  upon  her,  "  you  must  write  ! " 

"  Celia,"  he  retorted  boldly,  "I  won 't  write.  I  have 
a  genuine  regard  for  Hoskins ;  I  respect  him,  and  I 


150  A   FEAKFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

am  very  grateful  to  him  for  all  his  kindness  to  you. 
He  has  been  like  a  brother  to  you  both." 

"Why,  of  course,"  interrupted  Lily,  "I  never 
thought  of  him  as  anything  ~but  a  brother." 

"  And  though  I  must  say  I  think  it  would  have 
been  more  thoughtful  and  —  and  — •  more  considerate 
in  him  not  to  do  this  —  " 

"  We  did  everything  we  could  to  fight  him  off  from 
it,"  interrupted  Mrs.  Elmore,  "  both  of  us.  We  saw 
that  it  was  coming,  and  we  tried  to  stop  it.  But 
nothing  would  help.  Perhaps,  as  he  says,  he  did 
have  to  do  it." 

"  I  did  n't  dream  of  his  —  having  any  such  —  idea," 
said  Elmore.  "  I  felt  so  perfectly  safe  in  his  coming; 
I  trusted  everything  to  him." 

"  I  suppose  you  thought  his  wanting  to  come  was 
all  unconscious  cerebration,"  said  his  wife  disdain- 
fully. "  Well,  now  you  see  it  was  n't." 

"  Yes ;  but  it 's  too  late  now  to  help  it ;  and  though 
I  think  he  ought  to  have  spared  us  this,  if  he  thought 
there  was  no  hope  for  him,  still  I  can't  bring  myself 
to  inflict  pain  upon  him,  and  the  long  and  the  short  of 
it  is,  I  won  *t" 

"  But  how  is  he  to  be  answered  ? " 

"  I   don  't  know.     You  can  answer  him." 

"  I  could  never  do  it  in  the  world  !  " 


A  FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY.  151 

"  I  own  it's  difficult,"  said  Elmore  coldly. 

"  Oh,  /  will  answer  him  —  I  will  answer  him," 
cried  Lily,  "rather  than  have  any  trouble  about  it. 
Here,  —  here,"  she  said,  reaching  blindly  for  pen  and 
paper,  as  she  seated  herself  at  Elmore's  desk,  "  give 
me  the  ink,  quick.  Oh,  dear !  What  shall  I  say  ? 
What  date  is  it  ?  —  the  25th  ?  And  it  does  n't  mat- 
ter about  the  day  of  the  week.  '  Dear  Mr.  Hoskins  — 
Dear  Mr.  Hoskins  —  Dear  Mr.  Hosk '  —  Ought  you 
to  put  Clay  Hoskins,  Esq.,  at  the  top  or  the  bottom 
—  or  not  at  all,  when  you  Ve  said  Dear  Mr.  Hoskins  ? 
Esquire  seerns  so  cold,  anyway,  and  I  won  }t  put  it ! 
'  Dear  Mr.  Hoskins '  —  Professor  Elmore  !  "  she  im- 
plored reproachfully,  "  tell  me  what  to  say  ! " 

"  That  would  be  equivalent  to  writing  the  letter," 
he  began. 

"  Well,  write  it,  then,"  she  said,  throwing  down  the 
pen.  "  I  don  't  ask  you  to  dictate  it.  Write  it,  — 
write  anything,  —  just  in  pencil,  you  know ;  that 
won  't  commit  you  to  anything  ;  they  say  a  thing  in 
pencil  is  n  't  legal,  —  and  I  '11  copy  it  out  in  the  first 
person." 

"  Owen,"  said  his  wife,  "  you  shall  not  refuse  !  It 's 
inhuman,  it 's  inhospitable,  when  Lily  wants  you  to, 
so  !  Why,  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  ! " 

Elmore  desperately  caught  up  the  sheet  of  paper  on 


152  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

which   Lily  had  written   "Dear  Mr.  Hoskins,"  and 
groaning  out  "  Well,  well ! "  he  added,— 

I  have  your  letter.  Come  to  the  station  to-morrow  and 
say  good-by  to  her  whom  you  will  yet  live  to  thank  for  re- 
maining only  Your  friend, 

ELIZABETH  MAYHEW. 

"  There  !  there,  that  will  do  beautifully  —  beauti- 
fully !  Oh,  thank  you,  Professor  Elmore,  ever  and 
ever  so  much !  That  will  save  his  feelings,  and  do 
everything,"  said  Lily,  sitting  down  again  to  copy  it ; 
while  Mrs.  Elmore,  looking  over  her  shoulder,  min- 
gled her  hysterical  excitement  with  the  girl's,  and 
helped  her  out  by  sealing  the  note  when  it  was  fin- 
ished and  directed. 

It  accomplished  at  least  one  purpose  intended.  It 
kept  Hoskins  away  till  the  final  moment,  and  it 
brought  him  to  the  station  for  their  adieux  just  be- 
fore their  train  started.  A  consciousness  of  the  ab- 
surdity of  his  part  gave  his  face  a  humorously  rueful 
cast.  But  he  came  pluckily  to  the  mark.  He  marched 
straight  up  to  the  girl.  "  It 's  all  right,  Miss  Lily,"  he 
said,  and  offered  her  his  hand,  which  she  had  a  strong 
impulse  to  cry  over.  Then  he  turned  to  Mrs.  Elmore, 
and  while  he  held  her  hand  in  his  right,  he  placed  his 
left  affectionately  on  Elmore's  shoulder,  and,  looking 
at  Lily,  he  said,  "  You  ought  to  get  Miss  Lily  to  help 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  153 

you  out  with  your  history,  Professor ;  she  has  a  very 
good  style,  —  quite  a  literary  style,  I  should  have 
said,  if  I  hadn't  known  it  was  hers.  I  don't  like 
her  subjects,  though."  They  broke  into  a  forlorn 
laugh  together;  he  wrung  their  hands  once  more, 
without  a  word,  and,  without  looking  back,  limped 
out  of  the  waiting-room  and  out  of  their  lives. 

They  did  not  know  that  this  was  really  the  last  of 
Hoskins,  —  one  never  knows  that  any  parting  is  the 
last,  —  and  in  their  inability  to  conceive  of  a  serious 
passion  in  him,  they  quickly  consoled  themselves  for 
what  he  might  suffer.  They  knew  how  kindly,  how 
tenderly  even,  they  felt  towards  him,  and  by  that 
juggle  with  the  emotions  which  we  all  practise  at 
times,  they  found  comfort  for  him  in  the  fact. 
Another  interest,  another  figure,  began  to  occupy  the 
morbid  fancy  of  Elmore,  and  as  they  approached 
Peschiera  his  expectation  became  intense.  There 
was  no  reason  why  it  should  exist ;  it  would  be  by 
the  thousandth  chance,  even  if  Ehrhardt  were  still 
there,  that  they  should  meet  him  at  the  railroad 
station,  and  there  were  a  thousand  chances  that  he 
was  no  longer  in  Peschiera.  He  could  see  that  his 
wife  and  Lily  were  restive  too  :  as  the  train  drew  into 
the  station  they  nodded  to  each  other,  and  pointed 
out  of  the  window,  as  if  to  identify  the  spot  where 


154  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

Lily  had  first  noticed  him ;  they  laughed  nervously, 
and  it  seemed  to  Elmore  that  he  could  not  endure 
their  laughter. 

During  that  long  wait  which  the  train  used  to 
make  in  the  old  Austrian  times  at  Peschiera,  while 
the  police  authorities  vis£d  the  passports  of  those 
about  to  cross  the  frontier,  Elmore  continued  perpet- 
ually alert.  He  was  aware  that  he  should  not  know 
Ehrhardt  if  he  met  him ;  but  he  should  know  that  he 
was  present  from  the  looks  of  Lily  and  Mrs.  Elmore, 
and  he  watched  them.  They  dined  well  in  waiting, 
while  he  impatiently  trifled  with  the  food,  and  ate 
next  to  nothing ;  and  they  calmly  returned  to  their 
places  in  the  train,  to  which  he  remounted  after  a 
last  despairing  glance  around  the  platform  in  a  pas- 
sion of  disappointment.  The  old  longing  not  to  be 
left  so  wholly  to  the  effect  of  what  he  had  done 
possessed  him  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  sensations, 
and  as  the  train  moved  away  from  the  station  he  fell 
back  against  the  cushions  of  the  carriage,  sick  that  he 
should  never  even  have  looked  on  the  face  of  the  man 
in  whose  destiny  he  had  played  so  fatal  a  part. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  155 


XIII. 

IN  America,  life  soon  settled  into  form  about  the 
daily  duties  of  Elmore's  place,  and  the  daily  pleasures 
and  cares  which  his  wife  assumed  as  a  leader  in 
Patmos  society.  Their  sojourn  abroad  conferred  its 
distinction ;  the  day  came  when  they  regarded  it  as  a 
brilliant  episode,  and  it  was  only  by  fitful  glimpses 
that  they  recognized  its  essential  dulness.  After 
they  had  been  home  a  year  or  two,  Elmore  published 
his  Story  of  Venice  in  the  Lives  of  her  Heroes, 
which  fell  into  a  ready  oblivion ;  he  paid  all  the  ex- 
penses of  the  book,  and  was  puzzled  that,  in  spite  of 
this,  the  final  settlement  should  still  bring  him  in  debt 
to  his  publishers.  He  did  not  understand,  but  he  sub- 
mitted ;  and  he  accepted  the  failure  of  his  book  very 
meekly.  If  he  could  have  chosen,  he  would  have 
preferred  that  the"  Saturday  Keview,  which  alone 
noticed  it  in  London  with  three  lines  of  exquisite 
slight,  should  have  passed  it  in  silence.  But  after 


156  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

all,  he  felt  that  the  book  deserved  no  better  fate.  He 
always  spoke  of  it  as  unphilosophized  and  incom- 
plete, without  any  just  claim  to  being. 

Lily  had  returned  to  her  sister's  household,  but 
though  she  came  home  in  the  heyday  of  her  young 
beauty,  she  failed  somehow  to  take  up  the  story  of 
her  life  just  where  she  had  left  it  in  Patmos.  On  the 
way  home  she  had  refused  an  offer  in  London,  and 
shortly  after  her  arrival  in  America  she  received  a 
letter  from  a  young  gentleman  whom  she  had  casu- 
ally seen  in  Geneva,  and  who  had  found  exile  insup- 
portable since  parting  with  her,  and  was  ready  to 
return  to  his  native  land  at  her  bidding  ;  but  she  said 
nothing  of  these  proposals  till  long  afterwards  to 
Professor  Elmore,  who,  she  said,  had  suffered  enough 
from  her  offers.  She  went  to  all  the  parties  and 
picnics,  and  had  abundant  opportunities  of  flirtation 
and  marriage;  but  she  neither  flirted  nor  married. 
She  seemed  to  have  greatly  sobered ;  and  the  sound 
sense  which  she  had  always  shown  became  more 
and  more  qualified  with  a  thoughtful  sweetness.  At 
first,  the  relation  between  her  and  the  Elmores  lost 
something  of  its  intimacy ;  but  when,  after  several 
years,  her  health  gave  way,  a  familiarity,  even  kinder 
than  before,  grew  up.  She  used  to  like  to  come  to 
them,  and  talk  and  laugh  fondly  over  their  old  Vene- 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  157 

tian  days.  But  often  she  sat  pensive  and  absent,  in 
the  midst  of  these  memories,  and  looked  at  Elrnore 
with  a  regard  which  he  found  hard  to  bear :  a  gentle, 
unconscious  wonder  it  seemed,  in  which  he  imagined 
a  shade  of  tender  reproach. 

When  she  recovered  her  health,  after  a  journey 
to  the  West  one  winter,  they  saw  that,  by  some 
subtile  and  indefinable  difference,  she  was  no  longer 
a  young  girl.  Perhaps  it  was  because  they  had  not 
met  her  for  half  a  year.  But  perhaps  it  was  age,  — 
she  was  now  thirty.  However  it  was,  Elmore  recog- 
nized with  a  pang  that  the  first  youth  at  least  had 
gone  out  of  her  voice  and  eyes.  She  only  returned  to 
arrange  for  a  long  sojourn  in  the  West.  She  liked  the 
climate  and  the  people,  she  said ;  and  she  seemed 
well  and  happy.  She  had  planned  starting  a  Kinder- 
garten school  in  Omaha  with  another  young  lady  ; 
she  said  that  she  wanted  something  to  do.  "  She 
will  end  by  marrying  one  of  those  Western  widowers," 
said  Mrs.  Elmore. 

"  I  wonder  she  did  n't  take  poor  old  Hoskins," 
mused  Elmore  aloud. 

"  No,  you  don't,  dear,"  said  his  wife,  who  had  not 
grown  less  direct  in  dealing  with  him.  "  You  know 
it  would  have  been  ridiculous ;  besides,  she  never 
cared  anything  for  him,  —  she  could  n't.  You  might 


158  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

as  well  wonder  why  she  did  n't  take  Captain  Ehrhardt 
after  you  dismissed  him." 

"/  dismissed  him?" 

"  You  wrote  to  him,  did  n't  you  ? " 

"  Celia,"  cried  Elmore,  "  this  I  cannot  bear.  Did 
I  take  a  single  step  in  that  business  without  her 
request  and  your  full  approval  ?  Did  n't  you  both 
ask  me  to  write?" 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  we  did." 

"  Suppose  ? " 

"  Well,  we  did,  —  if  you  want  me  to  say  it.  And 
I  'm  not  accusing  you  of  anything.  I  know  you 
acted  for  the  best.  But  you  can  see  yourself,  can't 
you,  that  it  was  rather  sudden  to  have  it  end  so 
quickly  — 

She  did  not  finish  her  sentence,  or  he  did  not  hear 
the  close  in  the  miserable  absence  into  which  he 
lapsed.  "  Celia,"  he  asked  at  last,  "  do  you  think 
she  —  she  had  any  feeling  about  him  ?" 

"Oh,"  cried  his  wife  restively,  "how  should  / 
know  ? " 

"I  didn't  suppose  you  knew,"  he  pleaded.  "I 
asked  if  y^ou  thought  so." 

"What  would  be  the  use  of  thinking  anything 
about  it  ?  The  matter  can't  be  helped  now.  If  you 
inferred  from  anything  she  said  to  you  —  " 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  159 

"She  told  me  repeatedly,  in  answer  to  questions 
as  explicit  as  I  could  make  them,  that  she  wished 
him  dismissed." 

"  Well,  then,  very  likely  she  did." 

"  Very  likely,  Celia?" 

"  Yes.     At  any  rate,  it 's  too  late  now." 

"  Yes,  it 's  too  late  now."  He  was  silent  again,  and 
he  began  to  walk  the  floor,  after  his  old  habit,  with- 
out speaking.  He  was  always  mute  when  he  was  in 
pain,  and  he  startled  her  with  the  anguish  in  which 
he  now  broke  forth.  "  I  give  it  up !  I  give  it  up  ! 
Celia,  Celia,  I  'm  afraid  I  did  wrong !  Yes,  I  'm 
afraid  that  I  spoiled  two  lives.  I  ventured  to  lay 
my  sacrilegious  hands  upon  two  hearts  that  a  divine 
force  was  drawing  together,  and  put  them  asunder. 
It  was  a  lamentable  blunder,  —  it  was  a  crime  ! " 

"  Why,  Owen,  how  strangely  you  talk !  How 
could  you  have  done  any  differently  under  the  cir- 
cumstances ? " 

"  Oh,  I  could  have  done  very  differently.  I  might 
have  seen  him,  and  talked  with  him  brotherly,  face  to 
face.  He  was  a  fearless  and  generous  soul !  And  I 
was  meanly  scared  for  my  wretched  little  decorums, 
for  my  responsibility  to  her  friends,  and  I  gave  him 
no  chance." 

"We  wouldn't  let  you  give  him  any,"  interrupted 
his  wife. 


160  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"Don't  try -to  deceive  yourself,  don't  try  to  de- 
ceive me,  Celia !  I  know  well  enough  that  you 
would  have  been  glad  to  have  me  show  mercy ;  and 
I  would  not  even  show  him  the  poor  grace  of  passing 
his  offer  in  silence,  if  I  must  refuse  it.  I  could  n't 
spare  him  even  so  much  as  that ! " 

"  We  decided  —  we  both  decided  —  that  it  would 
be  better  to  cut  off  all  hope  at  once,"  urged  his 
wife. 

"  Ah,  it  was  I  who  decided  that  —  decided  every- 
thing. Leave  me  to  deal  honestly  with  myself  at 
last,  Celia  !  I  have  tried  long  enough  to  believe  that 
it  was  not  I  who  did  it  I "  The  pent-up  doubt  of 
years,  the  long-silenced  self-accusal,  burst  forth  in 
his  words.  "  Oh,  I  have  suffered  for  it !  I  thought 
he  must  come  back,  somehow,  as  long  as  we  stayed  in 
Venice.  When,  we  left  Peschiera  without  a  glimpse 
of  hirn  —  I  wonder  I  outlived  it.  But  even  if  I  had 
seen  him  there,  what  use  would  it  have  been  ? 
Would  I  have  tried  to  repair  the  wrong  done  ? 
What  did  I  do  but  impute  unmanly  and  impudent 
motives  to  him  when  he  seized  his  chance  to  see  her 
once  more  at  that  masquerade  —  " 

"  No,  no,  Owen  !  He  was  not  the  one.  Lily  was 
satisfied  of  that  long  ago.  It  was  nothing  but  a 
chance,  a  coincidence.  Perhaps  it  was  some  one  he 
had  told  about  the  affair  —  " 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.    '  161 

"  No  matter  !  no  matter !  If  I  thought  it  was  he, 
my  blame  is  the  same.  And  she,  poor  girl,  —  in  my 
lying  compassion  for  him,  I  used  to  accuse  her  of 
cold-hearted  ness,  of  indifference  !  I  wonder  she  did 
not  abhor  the  sight  of  me.  How  has  she  ever  toler- 
ated the  presence,  the  friendship,  of  a  man  who  did 
her  this  irreparable  wrong  ?  Yes,  it  has  spoiled  her 
life,  and  it  was  my  work.  No,  no,  Celia !  you  and 
she  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  except  as  I  forced  your 
consent  —  it  was  my  work;  and,  however  I  have  tried 
openly  and  secretly  to  shirk  it,  I  must  bear  this  fear- 
ful responsibility." 

He  dropped  into  a  chair,  and  hid  his  face  in  his 
hands,  while  his  wife  soothed  him  with  loving  ex- 
cuses for  what  he  had  done,  with  tender  protests 
against  the  exaggerations  of  his  remorse.  She  said 
that  he  had  done  the  only  thing  he  could  do ;  that 
Lily  wished  it,  and  that  she  never  had  blamed  him. 
"  Why,  I  don't  believe  she  would  ever  have  married 
Captain  Ehrhardt,  anyhow.  She  was  full  of  that 
silly  fancy  of  hers  about  Dick  Burton,  all  the  time, 
— you  know  how  she  used  always  to  be  talking  about 
him ;  and  when  she  came  home  and  found  she  had 
outgrown  him,  she  had  to  refuse  him,  and  I  suppose 
it's  that  that's  made  her  rather  melancholy."  "She 
explained  that  Major  Burton  had  become  extremely 

11 


162  A   FEARFUL   RESPONSIBILITY. 

fat,  that  his  "moustache  was  too  big  and  black,  and 
his  laugh  too  loud ;  there  was  nothing  left  of  him,  in 
fact,  but  his  empty  sleeve,  and  Lily  was  too  consci- 
entious to  marry  him  merely  for  that. 

In  fact,  Elmore's  regret  did  reflect  a  monstrous 
and  distorted  image  of  his  conduct.  He  had  really 
acted  the  part  of  a  prudent  and  conscientious  man ; 
he  was  perfectly  justifiable  at  every  step  :  but  in  the 
retrospect  those  steps  which  we  can  perfectly  justify 
sometimes  seem  to  have  cost  so  terribly  that  we  look 
back  even  upon  our  sinful  stumblings  with  better 
heart.  Heaven  knows  how  such  things  will  be  at  the 
last  day ;  but  at  that  moment  there  was  no  wrong,  no 
folly  of  his  youth,  of  which  Elmore  did  not  think  with 
more  comfort  than  of  this  passage  in  which  he  had 
been  so  wise  and  right. 

Of  course  the  time  came  when  he  saw  it  all  differ- 
ently again ;  when  his  wife  persuaded  him  that  he  had 
done  the  best  that  any  one  could  do  with  the  respon- 
sibilities that  ought  never  to  have  been  laid  on  a  man 
of  his  temperament  and  habits ;  when  he  even  came 
to  see  that  Lily's  feeling  was  a  matter  of  pure  con- 
jecture with  him,  and  that  so  far  as  he  knew  she  had 
never  cared  anything  for  Ehrhardt.  Yet  he  was  glad 
to  have  her  away ;  he  did  not  like  to  talk  of  her  with 
his  wife ;  he  did  not  think  of  her  if  he  could  help  it. 


A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY.  163 

They  heard  from  time  to  time  through  her  sister 
that  her  little  enterprise  in  Omaha  was  prospering, 
and  that  she  was  very  contented  out  West ;  at  last 
they  heard  directly  from  her  that  she  was  going  to 
be  married.  Till  then,  Elmore  had  been  dumbly  tor- 
mented in  his  sombre  moods  with  the  solution  of  a 
problem  at  which  his  imagination  vainly  toiled, — 
the  problem  of  how  some  day  she  and  Ehrhardt 
should  meet  again  and  retrieve  the  error  of  the  past 
for  him.  He  contrived  this  encounter  in  a  thou- 
sand different  ways  by  a  thousand  different  chances ; 
what  he  so  passionately  and  sorrowfully  longed  for 
accomplished  itself  continually  in  his  dreams,  but 
only  in  his  dreams. 

In  due  course  Lily  married,  and  from  all  they  could 
understand,  very  happily.  Her  husband  was  a  clergy- 
man, and  she  took  particular  interest  in  his  parochial 
work,  which  her  good  heart  and  clear  head  especially 
qualified  her  to  share  with  him.  To  connect  her  fate 
any  longer  with  that  of  Ehrhardt  was  now  not  only 
absurd,  it  was  improper  ;  yet  Elmore  sometimes  found 
his  fancy  forgetfully  at  work  as  before.  He  could  not 
at  once  realize  that,  the  tragedy  of  this  romance,  such 
as  it  was,  remained  to  him  alone,  except  perhaps  as 
Ehrhardt  shared  it.  With  him,  indeed,  Elmore  still 
sought  to  fret  his  remorse  and  keep  it  poignant,  and 


164  A  FEARFUL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

his  final  failure  to  do  so  made  him  ashamed.  But 
what  lasting  sorrow  can  one  have  from  the  disap- 
pointment of  a  man  whom  one  has  never  seen  ?  If 
Lily  could  console  herself,  it  seemed  probable  that 
Ehrhardt  too  had  "  got  along." 


AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  SAVAGE. 


AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

As  they  bowled  along  in  the  deliberate  German 
express  train  through  the  Black  Forest,  Colonel  Ken- 
ton  said  he  had  only  two  things  against  the  region : 
it  was  not  black,  and  it  was  not  a  forest.  He  had  all 
his  life  heard  of  the  Black  Forest,  and  he  hoped  he 
knew  what  it  was.  The  inhabitants  burned  char- 
coal, high  up  the  mountains,  and  carved  toys  in  the 
winter  when  shut  in  by  the  heavy  snows ;  they  had 
Easter  eggs  all  the  year  round,  with  overshot  mill- 
wheels  in  the  valleys,  and  cherry-trees  all  about, 
always  full  of  blossoms  or  ripe  fruit,  just  as  you  liked 
to  think.  They  were  very  poor  people,  but  very  de- 
vout, and  lived  in  little  villages  on  a  friendly  inti- 
macy with  their  cattle.  The  young  women  of  these 
hamlets  had  each  a  long  braid  of  yellow  hair  down 
her  back,  blue  eyes,  and  a  white  bodice  with  a  cat's- 
cradle  lacing  behind ;  the  men  had  bell-crowned  hats 
and  spindle-legs  :  they  buttoned  the  breath  out  of 


168  AT   THE  SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

their  bodies  with  round  pewter  buttons  on  tight, 
short  crimson  waistcoats. 

"  Now,  here,"  said  the  colonel,  breathing  on  the 
window  of  the  car  and  rubbing  a  little  space  clear  of 
the  frost,  "  I  see  nothing  of  the  sort.  Either  I  have 
been  imposed  upon  by  what  I  have  heard  of  the 
Black  Forest,  or  this  is  not  the  Black  Forest.  I  'm 
inclined  to  believe  that  there  is  no  Black  Forest,  and 
never  was.  There  is  n't,"  he  added,  looking  again, 
so  as  not  to  speak  hastily,  "  a  charcoal-burner,  or  an 
Easter  egg,  or  a  cherry  blossom,  or  a  yellow  braid,  or 
a  red  waistcoat,  to  enliven  the  whole  desolate  land- 
scape. What  are  we  to  think  of  it,  Bessie  ? " 

Mrs.  Kenton,  who  sat  opposite,  huddled  in  speech- 
less comfort  under  her  wraps  and  rugs,  and  was  just 
trying  to  decide  in  her  own  mind  whether  it  was  more 
delicious  to  let  her  feet,  now  that  they  were  thorough- 
ly warm,  rest  upon  the  carpet-covered  cylinder  of  hot 
water,  or  hover  just  a  hair's"  breadth  above  it  without 
touching  it,  answered  a  little  impatiently  that  she  did 
not  know.  In  ordinary  circumstances  she  would  not 
have  been  so  short  with  the  colonel's  nonsense.  She 
thought  that  was  the  way  all  men  talked  when  they 
got  well  acquainted  with  you ;  and,  as  coming  from  a 
sex  incapable  of  seriousness,  she  could  have  excused 
it  if  it  had  not  interrupted  her  in  her  solution  of  so 


AT   THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  169 

nice  a  problem.  Colonel  Kenton,  however,  did  not 
rnind.  He  at  once  possessed  himself  of  much  more 
than  his  share  of  the  cylinder,  extorting  a  cry  of  in- 
dignation from  his  wife,  who  now  saw  herself  reduced 
from  a  fastidious  choice  of  luxuries  to  a  mere  vulgar 
strife  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  —  a  thing  any  woman 
abhors. 

"  Well,  well,"  said  the  colonel,  "  keep  your  old  hot- 
water  bottle.  If  there  was  any  other  way  of  warming 
my  feet,  I  would  n't  touch  it.  It  makes  me  sick  to 
use  it ;  I  feel  as  if  the  doctor  was  going  to  order  me 
some  boneset  tea.  Give  me  a  good  red-hot  patent  car- 
heater,  that  smells  enough  of  burning  iron  to  make 
your  head  ache  in  a  minute,  and  sets  your  car  on  fire 
as  soon  as  it  rolls  over  the  embankment.  That's 
what  /  call  comfort.  A  hot-water  bottle  shoved 
under  your  feet  —  I  should  suppose  I  was  a  woman, 
and  a  feeble  one  at  that.  1 11  tell  you  what  /  think 
about  this  Black  Forest  business,  Bessie :  I  think  it 's 
part  of  a  system  of  deception  that  runs  through  the 
whole  German  character.  I  have  heard  the  Germans 
praised  for  their  sincerity  and  honesty,  but  I  tell  you 
they  have  got  to  work  hard  to  convince  me  of  it,  from 
this  out.  I  am  on  my  guard.  I  am  not  going  to  be 
taken  in  any  more." 

It  became  the  colonel's  pleasure  to  develop  and  ex- 


170  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

emplify  this  idea  at  all  points  of  their  progress  through 
Germany.  They  were  going  to  Italy,  and  as  Mrs. 
Kenton  had  had  enough  of  the  sea  in  coming  to 
Europe,  they  were  going  to  Italy  by  the  only  all-rail 
route  then  existing,  —  from  Paris  to  Vienna,  and  so 
down  through  the  Simmering  to  Trieste  and  Venice. 
Wherever  they  stopped,  whatever  they  did  before 
reaching  Vienna,  Colonel  Kenton  chose  to  preserve' 
his  guarded  attitude.  "Ah,  they  pretend  this  is 
Stuttgart,  do  they  ? "  he  said  on  arriving  at  the 
Suabian  capital.  "  A  likely  story !  They  pretended 
that  was  the  Black  Forest,  you  know,  Bessie,"  At 
Munich,  "  And  this  is  Munich  ! "  he  sneered,  when- 
ever the  conversation  flagged  during  their  sojourn. 
"It's  outrageous,  the  way  they  let  these  swindling 
little  towns  palm  themselves  off  upon  the  traveller  for 
cities  he 's  heard  of.  This  place  will  be  calling  itself 
Berlin,  next."  When  his  wife,  guide-book  in  hand, 
was  struggling  to  heat  her  admiration  at  some  cold 
history  of  Kaulbach,  and  in  her  failure  clinging  fondly 
to  the  fact  that  Kaulbach  had  painted  it,  "  Kaul- 
bach ! "  the  colonel  would  exclaim,  and  half  close  his 
eyes  and  slowly  nod  his  head  and  smile.  "What 
guide-book  is  that  you  Ve  got,  Bessie  ?  "  looking  cu- 
riously at  the  volume  he  knew  so  well.  "  Oh  !  — 
Baedeker !  And  are  you  going  to  let  a  Black  Forest 


AT   THE   SIGN    OF   THE    SAVAGE.  171 

Dutchman  like  Baedeker  persuade  you  that  this  daub 
is  by  Kaulbach  ?  Come  !  That 's  a  little  too  much  !  " 
He  rejected  the  birthplaces  of  famous  persons  one 
and  all ;  they  could  not  drive  through  a  street  or  into 
a  park,  whose  claims  to  be  this  or  that  street  or  park 
he  did  not  boldly  dispute ;  and  he  visited  a  pitiless 
incredulity  upon  the  dishes  of  the  table  d'hSte,  con- 
cerning which  he  always  answered  his  wife's  ques- 
tions :  "  Oh,  he  says  it 's  beef,"  or  veal,  or  fowl,  as  the 
case  might  be ;  and  though  he  never  failed  to  relish 
his  own  dinner,  strange  fears  began  to  affect  the  appe- 
tite of  Mrs.  Kenton.  It  happened  that  he  never  did 
come  out  with  these  sneers  before  other  travellers,  but 
his  wife  was  always  expecting  him  to  do  so,  and 
afterwards  portrayed  herself  as  ready  to  scream,  the 
whole  time.  She  was  not  a  nervous  person,  and  re- 
garding the  colonel's  jokes  as  part  of  the  matrimonial 
contract,  she  usually  bore  them,  as  I  have  hinted, 
with  severe  composure ;  accepting  them  all,  good,  bad, 
and  indifferent,  as  something  in  the  nature  of  man 
which  she  should  understand  better  after  they  had 
been  married  longer.  The  present  journey  was  made 
just  after  the  close  of  the  war ;  they  had  seen  very 
little  of  each  other  while  he  was  in  the  army,  and  it 
had  something  of  the  fresh  interest  of  a  bridal  tour. 
But  they  sojourned  only  a  day  or  two  in  the  places 


172  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

between  Strasburg  and  Vienna  ;  it  was  very  cold  and 
very  unpleasant  getting  about,  and  they  instinctively 
felt  what  every  wise  traveller  knows,  that  it  is  folly  to 
be  lingering  in  Germany  when  you  can  get  into  Italy ; 
and  so  they  hurried  on. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  one  night  when  they  reached 
Salzburg ;  and  when  their  baggage  had  been  visited 
and  their  passports  examined,  they  had  still  half  an 
hour  to  wait  before  the  train  went  on.  They  profited 
by  the  delay  to  consider  what  hotel  they  should  stop 
at  in  Vienna,  and  they  advised  with  their  Bradshaw 
on  the  point.  This  railway  guide  gave  in  its  laconic 
fashion  several  hotels,  and  specified  the  Kaiserin  Elis- 
abeth as  one  at  which  there  was  a  table  d'hote,  briefly 
explaining  that  at  most  hotels  in  Vienna  there  was 
none. 

"That  settles  it,"  said  Mrs.  Kenton.  "We  will  go 
to  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  of  course.  I  'm  sure  I 
never  want  the  bother  of  ordering  dinner  in  English, 
let  alone  German,  which  never  was  meant  for  human 
beings  to  speak." 

"  It 's  a  language  you  can't  tell  the  truth  in,"  said 
the  colonel  thoughtfully.  "You  can't  call  an  open 
country  an  open  country ;  you  have  to  call  it  a  Black 
Forest."  Mrs.  Kenton  sighed  patiently.  "  But  I  don't 
know  about  this  Kaiserin  Elisabeth  business.  How 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  173 

do  we  know  that 's  the  real  name  of  the  hotel  ?  How 
can  we  be  sure  that  it  isn't  an  alias,  an  assumed 
name,  trumped  up  for  the  occasion  ?  I  tell  you, 
Bessie,  we  can't  be  too  cautious  as  long  as  we  're  in 
this  fatherland  of  lies.  What  guide-book  is  this  ? 
Baedeker  ?  Oh  !  Bradshaw.  Well,  that 's  some  com- 
fort. Bradshaw's  an  Englishman,  at  least.  If  it  had 
been  Baedeker  "  — 

"  Oh,  Edward,  Edward ! "  Mrs.  Kenton  burst  out. 
"  Will  you  never  give  that  up  ?  Here  you  Ve  been 
harping  on  it  for  the  last  four  days,  and  worrying  my 
life  out  with  it.  I  think  it's  unkind.  It's  perfectly 
bewildering  me.  I  don't  know  where  or  what  I  am, 
any  more."  Some  tears  of  vexation  started  to  her 
eyes,  at  which  Colonel  Kenton  put  the  shaggy  arm 
of  his  overcoat  round  her,x  and  gave  her  an  honest 
hug. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  I  give  it  up,  from  this  out. 
Though  I  shall  always  say  that  it  was  a  joke  that 
wore  well.  And  I  can  tell  you,  Bessie,  that  it 's  no 
small  sacrifice  to  give  up  a  joke  that  you  Ve  just  got 
into  prime  working  order,  so  that  you  can  use  it  on 
almost  anything  that  comes  up.  But  that 's  a  thing 
that  you  can  never  understand.  Let  it  all  pass. 
We  '11  go  to  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  and  submit  to 
any  sort  of  imposition  they  Ve  a  mind  to  practise 


174  AT   THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

upon  us.  I-  shall  not  breathe  freely,  I  suppose,  till 
we  get  into  Italy,  where  people  mean  what  they  say. 
Haw,  haw, haw!"  laughed  the  colonel,  "honest  lago's 
the  man  I'm  after." 

The  doors  of  the  waiting-room  were  thrown  open, 
and  cries  of  "  Erste  Klasse  !  Zweite  Klasse  !  Dritte 
Klasse  !  "  summoned  the  variously  assorted  passengers 
to  carriages  of  their  several  degrees.  The  colonel 
lifted  his  little  wife  into  a  non-smoking  first-class 
carriage,  and  established  her  against  the  cushioned 
barrier  dividing  the  two  seats,  so  that  her  feet  could 
just  reach  the  hot-water  bottle,  as  he  called  it,  and 
tucked  her  in  and  built  her  up  so  with  wraps  that 
she  was  a  prodigy  of  comfort ;  and  then  folding  about 
him  the  long  fur-lined  coat  which  she  had  bought 
him  at  Munich  (in  spite  of  his  many  protests  that 
the  fur  was  artificial),  he  sat  down  on  the  seat  op- 
posite, and  proudly  enjoyed  the  perfect  content  that 
beamed  from  Mrs.  Kentpn's  face,  looking  so  small 
from  her  heap  of  luxurious  coverings. 

"  Well,  Bessie,  this  would  be  very  pleasant  —  if 
you  could  believe  in  it,"  he  said,  as  the  train  smoothly 
rolled  out  of  the  station.  "  But  of  course  it  can't  be 
genuine.  There  must  be  some  dodge  about  it.  I  've 
no  doubt  you'll  begin  to  feel  perfectly  horrid,  the 
first  thing  you  know." 


AT   THE   SIGN   OF   THE    SAVAGE.  175 

Mrs.  Kenton  let  him  go  on,  as  he  did  at  some 
length,  and  began  to  drowse,  while  he  amused  himself 
with  a  gross  parody  of  things  she  had  said  during  the 
past  four  days.  In  those  years  while  their  wedded 
bliss  was  yet  practically  new,  Colonel  Kenton  found 
his  wife  an  inexhaustible  source  of  mental  refresh- 
ment. He  prized  beyond  measure  the  feminine  in- 
adequacy and  excess  of  her  sayings;  he  had  stored 
away  such  a  variety  of  these  that  he  was  able  to  talk 
her  personal  parlance  for  an  hour  together ;  indeed, 
he  had  learned  the  trick  of  inventing  phrases  so  much 
in  her  manner  that  Mrs.  Kenton  never  felt  quite  safe 
in  disowning  any  monstrous  thing  attributed  to  her. 
Her  drowse  now  became  a  little  nap,  and  presently  a 
delicious  doze,  in  which  she  drifted  far  away  from  ac- 
tual circumstance  into  a  realm  where  she  seemed  to 
exist  as  a  mere  airy  thought  of  her  physical  self;  sud- 
denly she  lost  this  thought,  and  slept  through  all 
stops  at  stations  and  all  changes  of  the  hot-water 
cylinder,  to  renew  which  the  guard,  faithful  to 
Colonel  Kenton's  bribe,  alone  opened  the  door. 

"  Wake  up,  Bessie ! "  she  heard  her  husband  saying. 
"  We  're  at  Vienna." 

It  seemed  very  improbable,  but  she  did  not  dispute 
it.  "  What  time  is  it  ? "  she  asked,  as  she  suffered 
herself  to  be  lifted  from  the  carriage  into  the  keen  air 
of  the  winter  night 


176  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

"  Three  o'elock,"  said  the  colonel,  hurrying  her  into 
the  waiting-room,  where  she  sat,  still  somewhat  re- 
mote from  herself  but  getting  nearer  and  nearer, 
while  he  went  off  about  the  baggage.  "  Now,  then  ! " 
he  cried  cheerfully  when  he  returned  ;  and  he  led  his 
wife  out  and  put  her  into  a  fiacre.  The  driver  bent 
from  his  perch  and  arrested  the  colonel,  as  he  was 
getting  in  after  Mrs.  Kenton,  with  words  in  them- 
selves unintelligible,  but  so  probably  in  demand  for 
neglected  instructions  that  the  colonel  said,  "  Oh ! 
Kaiserin  Elisabeth  ! "  and  again  bowed  his  head  to- 
wards the  fiacre  door,  when  the  driver  addressed  fur- 
ther speech  to  him,  so  diffuse  and  so  presumably 
unnecessary  that  Colonel  Kenton  merely  repeated, 
with  rising  impatience,  "  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  —  Kai- 
serin Elisabeth,  I  tell  you  ! "  and  getting  in  shut  the 
fiacre  door  after  him. 

The  driver  remained  a  moment  in  mumbled  solilo- 
quy ;  then  he  smacked  his  whip  and  drove  rapidly 
away.  They  were  aware  of  nothing  outside  but  the 
starlit  winter  morning  in  unknown  streets,  till  they 
plunged  at  last  under  an  archway  and  drew  up  at  a 
sort  of  lodge  door,  from  which  issued  an  example  of 
the  universal  gold-cap-banded  continental  hotel  por- 
tier,  so  like  all  others  in  Europe  that  it  seemed  idle 
for  him  to  be  leading  an  individual  existence.  He 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  177 

took  the  colonel's  passport  and  summoned  a  waiter, 
who  went  bowing  before  them  up  a  staircase  more  or 
less  grandiose,  and  led  them  to  a  pleasant  chamber, 
whither  he  sent  directly  a  woman  servant.  She  bade 
them  a  hearty  good  morning  in  her  tongue,  and, 
kneeling  down  before  the  tall  porcelain  stove,  kindled 
from  her  apronful  of  blocks  and  sticks  a  fire  that  soon 
penetrated  the  travellers  with  a  rich  comfort.  It  was 
of  course  too  ear'y  yet  to  think  of  breakfast,  but  it 
was  fortunately  not  too  late  to  think  of  sleep.  They 
were  both  very  tired,  and  it  was  almost  noon  when 
they  woke.  The  colonel  had  the  fire  rekindled,  and 
he  ordered  breakfast  to  be  served  them  in  their  room. 
"  Beefsteak  and  coffee  —  here  !"  he  said,  pointing  to 
the  table ;  and  as  he  made  Mrs.  Kenton  snug  near  the 
stove  he  expatiated  in  her  own  terms  upon  the  per- 
fect loveliness  of  the  whole  affair,  and  the  touch  of 
nature  that  made  coffee  and  beefsteak  the  same  in 
every  language.  It  seemed  that  the  Kaiserin  Elisa- 
beth knew  how  to  serve  such  a  breakfast  in  faultless 
taste;  and  they  sat  long  over  it,  in  that  sense  of 
sovereign  satisfaction  which  beefsteak  and  coffee  in 
your  own  room  can  best  give.  At  last  the  colonel 
rose  briskly  and  announced  the  order  of  the  day. 
They  were  to  go  here,  they  were  to  stop  there ;  they 
were  to  see  this,  they  were  to  do  that. 

12 


178  AT   THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

"  Nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  Mrs.  Kentoii.  "  I  am 
not  going  out  at  all  to-day.  It 's  too  cold  ;  and  if  we 
are  to  push  on  to  Trieste  to-morrow,  I  shall  need  the 
whole  day  to  get  a  little  rested.  Besides,  I  have 
some  jobs  of  mending  to  do  that  can't  be  put  off  any 
longer." 

The  colonel  listened  with  an  air  of  joyous  admira- 
tion. "  Bessie,"  said  he,  "  this  is  inspiration.  /  don't 
want  to  see  their  old  town ;  and  I  shall  ask  nothing 
better  than  to  spend  the  day  with  you  here  at  our 
own  fireside.  You  can  sew,  and  I  —  I  '11  read  to  you, 
Bessie  ! "  This  was  a  little  too  gross ;  even  Mrs. 
Kenton  laughed  at  this,  the  act  of  reading  being  so 
abhorrent  to  Colonel  Kenton's  active  temperament 
that  he  was  notorious  for  his  avoidance  of  all  litera- 
ture except  newspapers.  In  about  ten  minutes,  passed 
in  an  agreeable  idealization  of  his  purpose,  which 
came  in  that  time  to  include  the  perusal  of  all  the 
books  on  Italy  he  had  picked  up  on  their  journey, 
the  colonel  said  he  would  go  down  and  ask  the  por- 
tier  if  they  had  the  New  York  papers. 

When  he  returned,  somewhat  disconsolate,  to  say 
they  had  not,  and  had  apparently  never  heard  of  the 
Herald  or  Tribune,  his  wife  smiled  subtly :  "  Then  I 
suppose  you  11  have  to  go  to  the  consul's  for  them." 

"  Why,  Bessie,  it  is  n't  a  thing  I  should  have  sug- 


AT   THE   SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE.  179 

gested  ;  I  can't  bear  the  thoughts  of  leaving  you  here 
alone  ;  but  as  you  say  !  No,  1 11  tell  you  :  I  '11  not  go 
for  the  New  York  papers,  but  I  will  just  step  round 
and  call  upon  the  representative  of  the  country  — 
pay  my  respects  to  him,  you  know  —  if  you  wish  it. 
But  I'd  far  rather  spend  the  time  here  with  you, 
Bessie,  in  our  cosy  little  boudoir ;  I  would,  indeed." 

Mrs.  Kenton  now  laughed  outright,  and  —  it  was  a 
tremendous  sarcasm  for  her  —  asked  him  if  he  were 
not  afraid  the  example  of  the  Black  Forest  was  be- 
coming infectious. 

"  Oh,  come  now,  Bessie ;  no  joking,"  pleaded  the 
colonel,  in  mock  distress.  "  I  '11  tell  you  what,  my 
dear,  the  head  waiter  here  speaks  English  like  a  — 
an  Ollendorff;  and  if  you  get  to  feeling  a  little  lone- 
some while  I'm  out,  you  can  just  ring  and  order 
something  from  him,  you  know.  It  will  cheer  you 
up  to  hear  the  sound  of  your  native  tongue  in  a 
foreign  land.  But,  pshaw  !  /  sha  'nt  be  gone  a 
minute ! " 

By  this  time  the  colonel  had  got  on  his  overcoat 
and  gloves,  .and  had  his  hat  in  one  hand,  and  was 
leaning  over  his  wife,  resting  the  other  hand  on  the 
back  of  the  chair  in  which  she  sat  warming  the  toes 
of  her  slippers  at  the  draft  of  the  stove.  She  popped 
him  a  cheery  little  kiss  on  his  mustache,  and  gave 


180  AT   THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

him  a  small  push  :  "  Stay  as  long  as  you  like,  Ned.  I 
shall  not  be  in  the  least  lonesome.  I  shall  do  my 
mending,  and  then  I  shall  take  a  nap,  and  by  that 
time  it  will  be  dinner.  You  need  n't  come  back 
before  dinner.  What  hour  is  the  table  d'hote  ? " 

"  Oh  ! "  cried  the  colonel  guiltily.  "  The  fact  is,  I 
was  n't  going  to  tell  you,  I  thought  it  would  vex  you 
so  much :  there  is  no  table  d'hote  here  and  never  was. 
Bradshaw  has  been  depraved  by  the  moral  atmos- 
phere of  Germany.  I  'd  as  soon  trust  Baedeker  after 
this." 

"  Well,  never  mind,"  said  Mrs.  Kenton.  "  We  can 
tell  them  to  bring  us  what  they  like  for  dinner,  and 
we  can  have  it  whenever  we  like." 

"  Bessie  I "  exclaimed  the  colonel,  "  I  have  not 
done  justice  to  you,  and  I  supposed  I  had.  I  knew 
how  bright  and  beautiful  you  were,  but  I  didnt 
think  you  were  so  amiable.  I  did  n't,  indeed.  This 
is  a  real  surprise,"  he  said,  getting  out  at  the  door. 
He  opened  it  to  add  that  he  would  be  back  in  an 
hour,  and  then  he  went  his  way,  with  the  light  heart 
of  a  husband  who  has  a  day  to  himself  with  his  wife's 
full  approval. 

At  the  consulate  a  still  greater  surprise  awaited 
Colonel  Kenton.  This  was  the  consul  himself,  who 
proved  to  be  an  old  companion-in-arms,  and  into 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  181 

whose  awful  presence  the  colonel  was  ushered  by  a 
Hausmeister  in  a  cocked  hat  and  a  gold-braided  uni- 
form finer  than  that  of  all  the  American  major- 
generals  put  together.  The  friends  both  shouted 
"  Hollo  ! "  and  "  You  don't  say  so  !  "  and  threw  back 
their  heads  and  laughed. 

"  Why,  did  n't  you  know  I  was  here  ?  "  demanded 
the  consul  when  the  hard  work  of  greeting  was.  over. 
"  I  thought  everybody  knew  that." 

"  Oh,  I  knew  you  were  rusting  out  in  some  of  these 
Dutch  towns,  but  I  never  supposed  it  was  Vienna. 
But  that  does  n't  make  any  difference,  so  long  as  you 
are  here."  At  this  they  smacked  each  other  on  the 
knees,  and  laughed  again.  That  carried  them  by  a 
very  rough  point  in  their  astonishment,  and  they  now 
composed  themselves  to  the  pleasure  of  telling  each 
other  how  they  happened  to  be  then  and  there,  with 
glances  at  their  personal  history  when  they  were 
making  it  together  in  the  field. 

"  Well,  now,  what  are  you  going  to  do  the  rest  of 
the  day  ?  "  asked  the  consul  at  last,  with  a  look  at  his 
watch.  "  As  I  understand  it,  you  're  going  to  spend 
it  with  me,  somehow.  The  question  is,  how  would 
you  like  to  spend  it  ?  " 

"  This  is  a  handsome  offer,  Davis  ;  but  I  don't  see 
how  I  'm  to  manage  exactly,"  replied  the  colonel,  for 


182  AT   THE    SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE. 

the  first  time  distinctly  recalling  the  memory  of  Mrs, 
Kenton.  "  My  wife  would  n't  know  what  had  become 
of  me,  you  know." 

"  Oh,  yes,  she  would,"  retorted  the  consul,  with  a 
bachelor's  ignorant  ease  of  mind  on  a  point  of  that 
kind.  "  We  11  go  round  and  take  her  with  us." 

The  colonel  gravely  shook  his  head.  "  She  would  n't 
go,  old  fellow.  She  's  in  for  a  day's  rest  and  odd  jobs. 
I'll  tell  you  what,  I'll  just  drop  round  and  let  her 
know  I  've  found  you,  and  then  come  back  again. 
You  11  dine  with  us,  won't  you  ? "  Colonel  Kenton 
had  not  always  found  old  comradeship  a  bond  between 
Mrs.  Kenton  and  his  friends,  but  he  believed  he 
could  safely  chance  it  with  Davis,  whom  she  had 
always  rather  liked,  —  with  such  small  regard  as  a 
lady's  devotion  to  her  husband  leaves  her  for  his 
friends. 

"  Oh,  1 11  dine  with  you  fast  enough,"  said  his 
friend.  "But  why  don't  you  send  a  note  to  Mrs. 
Kenton  to  say  that  we  11  be  round  together,  and  save 
yourself  the  bother  ?  Did  you  come  here  alone  ?  " 

"  Bless  your  heart,  no  !  I  forgot  him.  The  poor 
devil 's  out  there,  cooling  his  heels  on  your  stairs  all 
this  time.  I  came  with  a  complete  guide  to  Vienna. 
Can't  you  let  him  in  out  of  the  weather  a  minute  ?  " 

"  We  '11  have  him  in,  so  that  he  can  take  your  note 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  183 

back ;  but  he  does  n't  "expect  to  be  decently  treated : 
they  don't,  here.  You  just  sit  down  and  write  it," 
said  the  consul,  pushing  the  colonel  into  his  own 
chair  before  his  desk;  and  when  the  colonel  had 
superscribed  his  note,  he  called  in  the  Lohndiener,  — 
patient,  hat  in  hand,  —  and,  "  Where  are  you  stop- 
ping ? "  he  asked  the  colonel. 

"  Oh,  I  forgot  that.  At  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth. 
I'll  just  write  it"- 

"  Never  mind ;  we  '11  tell  him  where  to  take  it. 
See  here,"  added  the  consul  in  a  serviceable  Viennese 
German  of  his  own  construction.  "  Take  this  to  the 
Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  quick ; "  and  as  the  man  looked  up 
in  a  dull  surprise,  "  Do  you  hear  ?  The  Kaiserin 
Elisabeth  ! " 

"  /  don't  know  what  it  is  about  that  hotel,"  said 
the  colonel,  when  the  man  had  meekly  bowed  him- 
self away,  with  a  hat  that  swept  the  ground  in  honor 
of  a  handsome  drink-money ;  "  but  the  mention  of  it 
always  seems  to  awaken  some  sort  of  reluctance  in 
the  minds  of  the  lower  classes.  Our  driver  wanted  to 
enter  into  conversation  with  me  about  it  this  morn- 
ing at  three  o'clock,  and  I  had  to  be  pretty  short  with 
him.  If  you  don't  know  the  language,  it  is  n't  so 
difficult  to  be  short  in  German  as  I  've  heard.  And 
another  curious  thing  is  that  Bradshaw  says  the 


184  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

Kaiserin  Elisabeth  has  a  table  d'hOte,  and  the  head- 
waiter  says  she  has  n't,  and  "never  did  have.'" 

"  Oh,  you  can't  trust  anybody  in  Europe,"  said  the 
consul  sententiously.  "  I  'd  leave  Bradshaw  and  the 
waiter  to  fight  it  out  among  themselves.  We  '11  get 
back  in  time  to  order  a  dinner;  it's  always  better, 
and  then  we  can  dine  alone,  and  have  a  good  time." 

"They  couldn't  keep  us  from  having  a  good  time 
at  a  table  d'h6te,  even.  But  I  don't  mind." 

By  this  time  they  had  got  on  their  hats  and  coats 
and  sallied  forth.  They  first  went  to  a  cafe  and  had 
some  of  that  famous  Viennese  coffee  ;  and  then  they 
went  to  the  imperial  and  municipal  arsenals,  and 
viewed  those  collections  of  historical  bricabrac,  in- 
cluding the  head  of  the  unhappy  Turkish  general 
who  was  strangled  by  his  sovereign  because  he  failed 
to  take  Vienna  in  1683.  This  from  familiarity  had 
no  longer  any  effect  upon  the  consul,  but  it  gave 
Colonel  Kenton  prolonged  pause.  "  I  should  have  pre- 
ferred a  subordinate  position  in  the  sultan's  army,  I  be- 
lieve," he  said.  "  Why,  Davis,  what  a  museum  we 
could  have  had  out  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  alone, 
if  Lincoln  had  been  as  particular  as  that  sultan  ! " 

From  the  arsenals  they  went  to  visit  the  parade- 
ground  of  the  garrison,  and  came  in  time  to  see  a 
manoeuvre  of  the  troops,  at  which  they  looked  with 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  185 

the  frank  respect  and  reserved  superiority  with  which 
our  veterans  seem  to  regard  the  military  of  Europe. 
Then  they  walked  about  and  noted  the  principal 
monuments  of  the  city,  and  strolled  along  the  prom- 
enades and  looked  at  the  handsome  officers  and  the 
beautiful  women.  Colonel  Kenton  admired  the  life 
and  the  gay  movement  everywhere ;  since  leaving 
Paris  he  had  seen  nothing  so  much  like  New  York. 
But  he  did  not  like  their  shovelling  up  the  snow  into 
carts  everywhere  and  dumping  all  that  fine  sleighing 
into  the  Danube.  "By  the  way,"  said  his  friend, 
"  let 's  go  over  into  Leopoldstadt,  and  see  if  we  can't 
scare  up  a  sleigh  for  a  little  turn  in  the  suburbs." 

"  It 's  getting  late,  is  n't  it  ?  "  asked  the  colonel. 

"  iSTot  so  late  as  it  looks.  You  know  we  have  n't 
the  high  American  sun,  here." 

Colonel  Kenton  was  having  such  a  good  time  that 
he  felt  no  trouble  about  his  wife,  sitting  over  her 
mending  in  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth ;  and  he  yielded 
joyfully,  thinking  how  much  she  would  like  to  hear 
about  the  suburbs  of  Vienna:  a  husband  will  go 
through  almost  any  pleasure  in  order  to  give  his  wife 
an  entertaining  account  of  it  afterwards ;  besides,  a 
bachelor  companionship  is  confusing  :  it  makes  many 
things  appear  right  and  feasible  which  are  perhaps 
not  so.  It  was  not  till  their  driver,  who  had  turned 


186  AT  THE   SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE. 

out  of  the  beaten  track  into  a  wayside  drift  to  make 
room  for  another  vehicle,  attempted  to  regain  the  road 
by  too  abrupt  a  movement,  and  the  shafts  of  their 
sledge  responded  with  a  loud  crick-crack,  that  Colonel 
Kenton  perceived  the  error  into  which  he  had  suffered 
himself  to  be  led.  At  three  miles'  distance  from  the 
city,  and  with  the  winter  twilight  beginning  to  fall,  he 
felt  the  pang  of  a  sudden  remorse.  It  grew  sorer  with 
every  homeward  step  and  with  each  successive  fail- 
ure to  secure  a  conveyance  for  their  return.  In  fine, 
they  trudged  back  to  Leopoldstadt,  where  an  absurd 
series  of  discomfitures  awaited  them  in  their  attempts 
to  get  a  fiacre  over  into  the  main  city.  They  visited 
all  the  stands  known  to  the  consul,  and  then  they 
were  obliged  to  walk.  But  they  were  not  tired,  and 
they  made "  their  distance  so  quickly  that  Colonel 
Ken  ton's  spirits  rose  again.  He  was  able  for  the 
first  time  to  smile  at  their  misadventure,  and  some 
misgivings  as  to  how  Mrs.  Kenton  might  stand  af- 
fected towards  a  guest  under  the  circumstances 
yielded  to  the  thought  of  how  he  should  make  her 
laugh  at  them  both.  "  Good  old  Davis  ! "  mused  the 
colonel,  and  affectionately  linked  his  arm  through  that 
of  his  friend  ;  and  they  stamped  through  the  brilliantly 
lighted  streets  gay  with  uniforms  and  the  picturesque 
costumes  with  which  the  Levant  at  Vienna  encoun- 


AT  THE   SIGN    OF   THE   SAVAGE.  187 

ters  the  London  and  Paris  fashions.  Suddenly  the 
consul  arrested  their  movement.  "  Did  n't  you  say 
you  were  stopping  at  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth  ? " 

"  Why,  yes  ;  certainly." 

"Well,  it's  just  around  the  corner,  here."  The 
consul  turned  him  about,  and  in  another  minute  they 
walked  under  an  archway  into  a  court-yard,  and  were 
met  by  the  portier  at  the  door  of  his  room  with  an 
inquiring  obeisance. 

Colonel  Kenton  started.  The  cap  and  the  cap- 
band  were  the  same,  and  it  was  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  the  same  portier  who  had  bowed  him  away 
in  the  morning;  but  the  face  was  different;  On 
noting  this  fact  Colonel  Kenton  observed  so  general 
a  change  in  the  appointments  and  even  architecture 
of  the  place  that,  "  Old  fellow,"  he  said  to  the  consul, 
"  you  've  made  a  little  mistake ;  this  is  n't  the  Kaiserin 
Elisabeth." 

The  consul  referred  the  matter  to  the  portier.  Per- 
fectly; that  was  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth.  "Well, 
then,"  said  the  colonel,  "  tell  him  to  have  us  shown 
to  my  room."  The  portier  discovered  a  certain  em- 
barrassment when  the  colonel's  pleasure  was  made 
known  to  him,  and  ventured  something  in  reply 
which  made  the  consul  smile. 

"  Look  here,  Kenton,"   he  said,   "  you  've  made   a 


188  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

little  mistake,  this  time.     You  're  not  stopping  at  the 
Kaiserin  Elisabeth ! " 

"  Oh,  pshaw  !  Come  now  !  Don't  bring  the  con- 
sular dignity  so  low  as  to  enter  into  a  practical  joke 
with  a  hotel  porter.  It  won't  do.  We  got  into 
Vienna  this  morning  at  three,  and  drove  straight  to 
the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth.  We  had  a  room  and  fire, 
and  breakfast  about  noon.  Tell  him  who  I  am,  and 
what  I  say." 

The  consul  did  so,  the  portier  slowly  and  respect- 
fully shaking  his  head  at  every  point.  When  it  carne 
to  the  name,  he  turned  to  his  books,  and  shook  his 
head  yet  more  impressively.  Then  he  took  down  a 
letter,  spelled  its  address,  and  handed  it  to  the 
colonel ;  it  was  his  own  note  to  Mrs.  Kenton.  That 
quite  crushed  him.  He  looked  at  it  in  a  dull,  me- 
chanical way,  and  nodded  his  head  with  compressed 
lips.  Then  he  scanned  the  portier,  and  glanced  round 
once  more  at  the  bedevilled  architecture.  "Well," 
said  he,  at  last,  "  there  's  a  mistake  somewhere.  Un- 
less there  are  two  Kaiserin  Elisabeths  —  Davis,  ask 
him  if  there  are  two  Kaiserin  Elisabeths." 

The  consul  compassionately  put  the  question,  re- 
ceived with  something  like  grief  by  the  portier.  Im- 
possible ! 

"  Then  I  'm  not  stopping  at  either  of  them,"  con- 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE.  189 

tinned  the  colonel.  "  So  far,  so  good,  —  if  you  want 
to  call  it  good.  The  question  is  now,  if  I'm  not 
stopping  fit  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,"  he  demanded, 
with  sudden  heat,  and  raising  his  voice,  "  how  the 
devil  did  I  get  there?" 

The  consul  at  this  broke  into  a  fit  of  laughter  so 
violent  that  the  portier  retired  a  pace  or  two  from 
these  maniacs,  and  took  up  a  safe  position  within  his 
doorway.  "You  didn't  —  you  didn't — -  get  there!" 
shrieked  the  consul.  "  That 's  what  made  the  whole 
trouble.  You  —  you  meant  well,  but  you  got  some- 
where else."  He  took  out  his  handkerchief  and 
wiped  the  tears  from  his  eyes. 

The  colonel  did  not  laugh  ;  he  had  no  real  pleasure 
in  the  joke.  On  the  contrary,  he  treated  it  as  a 
serious  business.  "  Very  well,"  said  he,  "  it  will  be 
proved  next  that  I  never  told  that  driver  to  take  me 
to  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  as  it  appears  that  I  never 
got  there  and  am  not  stopping  there.  Will  you  be 
good  enough  to  tell  me,"  he  asked,  with  polished  sar- 
casm, "  where  I  am  stopping,  and  why,  and  how  ?  ' 

"I  wish  with  all  my  heart  I  could,"  gasped  his 
friend,  catching  his  breath,  "  but  I  can't,  and  the  only 
way  is  to  go  round  to  the  principal  hotels  till  we  hit 
the  right  one.  It  won't  take  long.  Come  ! "  He 
passed  his  arm  through  that  of  the  colonel,  and  made 


190  AT  THE   SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE. 

an  explanation  to  the  portier,  as  if  accounting  for  the 
vagaries  of  some  harmless  eccentric  he  had  in  charge. 
Then  he  pulled  his  friend  gently  away,  who  yielded 
after  a  survey  of  the  portier  and  the  court-yard  with 
a  frown  in  which  an  indignant  sense  of  injury  quite 
eclipsed  his  former  bewilderment.  He  had  still  this 
defiant  air  when  they  came  to  the  next  hotel,  and 
used  the  portier  with  so  much  severity  on  finding 
that  he  was  not  stopping  there,  either,  that  the  consul 
was  obliged  to  protest :  "  If  you  behave  in  that  way, 
Kenton,  I  won't  go  with  you.  The  man 's  perfectly 
innocent  of  your  stopping  at  the  wrong  place ;  and 
some  of  these  hotel  people  know  me,  and  I  won't 
stand  your  bullying  them.  And  I  tell  you  what : 
you  've  got  to  let  me  have  my  laugh  out,  too.  You 
know  the  thing  's  perfectly  ridiculous,  and  there  's  no 
use  putting  any  other  face  on  it."  The  consul  did 
not  wait  for  leave  to  have  his  laugh  out,  but  had  it 
out  in  a  series  of  furious  gusts.  At  last  the  colonel 
himself  joined  him  ruefully. 

"  Of  course,"  said  he,  "  I  know  I  'm  an  ass,  and  I 
would  n't  mind  it  on  my  own  account.  /  would  as 
soon  roam  round  after  that  hotel  the  rest  of  the  night 
as  not,  but  I  can't  help  feeling  anxious  about  my 
wife.  I  'm  afraid  she  '11  be  getting  very  uneasy  at 
my  being  gone  so  long.  She 's  all  alone,  there, 
wherever  it  is,  and  —  " 


AT   THE    SIGN    OF   THE    SAVAGE.  191 

"  Well,  but  she  's  got  your  note.  She  '11  under- 
stand —  " 

"  What  a  fool  you  are,  Davis  !  There  's  my  note  !  " 
cried  the  colonel,  opening  his  fist  and  showing  a-  very 
small  wad  of  paper  in  his  palm.  "  She  'd  have  got 
my  note  if  she  'd  been  at  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth ;  but 
she  's  no  more  there  than  I  am." 

"  Oh  ! "  said  his  friend,  sobered  at  this.  "  To  be 
sure!  Well?" 

"  Well,  it 's  no  use  trying  to  tell  a  man  like  you  ; 
but  I  suppose  that  she  's  simply  distracted  by  this 
time.  You  don't  know  what  a  woman  is,  and  how 
she  can  suffer  about  a  little  matter  when  she  gives 
her  mind  to  it." 

"  Oh ! "  said  the  consul  again,  very  contritely. 
"  I  'm  very  sorry  I  laughed  ;  but "  —  here  he  looked 
into  the  colonel's  gloomy  face  with  a  countenance 
contorted  with  agony  —  "  this  only  makes  it  the  more 
ridiculous,  you  know ; "  and  he  reeled  away,  drunk 
with  the  mirth  which  filled  him  from  head  to  foot. 
But  he  repented  again,  and  with  a  superhuman  effort 
so  far  subdued  his  transports  as  merely  to  quake  in- 
ternally, and  tremble  all  over,  as  he  led  the  way  to 
the  next  hotel,  arm  in  arm  with  the  bewildered  and 
embittered  colonel.  He  encouraged  the  latter  with 
much  genuine  sympathy,  and  observed  a  proper 


192  AT   THE   SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE. 

decorum  in  his  interviews  with  one  portier  after 
another,  formulating  the  colonel's  story  very  neatly, 
and  explaining  at  the  close  that  this  American  Herr, 
who  "had  arrived  at  Vienna  before  daylight  and  di- 
rected his  driver  to  take  him  to  the  Kaiserin  Elisa- 
beth, and  had  left  his  hotel  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
belief  that  it  was  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  felt  now 
an  added  eagerness  to  know  what  his  hotel  really  was 
from  the  circumstance  that  his  wife  was  there  quite 
alone  and  in  probable  distress  at  his  long  absence. 
At  first  Colonel  Kenton  took  a  lively  interest  in  this 
statement  of  his  case,  and  prompted  the  consul  with 
various  remarks  and  sub-statements  ;  he  was  grateful 
for  the  compassion  generally  shown  him  by  the  por- 
tiers,  and  he  strove  with  himself  to  give  some  account 
of  the  exterior  and  locality  of  his  mysterious  hotel. 
But  the  fact  was  that  he  had  not  so  much  as  looked 
behind  him  when  he  quitted  it,  and  knew  nothing 
about  its  appearance ;  and  gradually  the  reiteration  of 
the  points  of  his  misadventure  to  one  portier  after 
another  began  to  be  as  "  a  tale  of  little  meaning, 
though  the  words  are  strong."  His  personation  of  an 
American  Herr  in  great  trouble  of  mind  was  an 
entire  failure,  except  as  illustrating  the  national 
apathy  of  countenance  when  under  the  influence  of 
strong  emotion.  He  ceased  to  take  part  in  the  con- 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  193 

sul's  efforts  in  his  behalf:  the  whole  abominable 
affair  seemed  as  far  beyond  his  forecast  or  endeavor 
as  some  result  of  malign  enchantment,  and  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  carrying  off  the  tragedy  with 
self-respect.  Distressing  as  it  was,  there  could  be  no 
question  but  it  was  entirely  ridiculous  ;  he  hung  his 
head  with  shame  before  the  portiers  at  being  a  party 
to  it ;  he  no  longer  felt  like  resenting  Davis's  amuse- 
ment ;  he  only  wondered  that  he  could  keep  his  face 
in  relating  the  idiotic  mischance.  Each  successive 
failure  to  discover  his  lodging  confirmed  him  in  his 
humiliation  and  despair.  Very  likely  there  was  a 
way  out  of  the  difficulty,  but  he  did  not  know  it. 
He  became  at  last  almost  an  indifferent  spectator  of 
the  consul's  perseverance.  He  began  to  look  back 
with  incredulity  at  the  period  of  his  life  passed  be- 
fore entering  the  fatal  fiacre  that  morning.  He 
received  the  final  portier's  rejection  with  something 
like  a  personal  derision. 

"  That 's  the  last  place  I  can  think  of,"  said  the 
consul,  wiping  his  brow  as  they  emerged  from  the 
court-yard,  for  he  had  grown  very  warm  with  walking 
so  much. 

'•  Oh,  all  right,"  said  the  colonel  languidly. 

"  But  we  won't  give  it  up.  Let 's  go  in  here  and 
get  some  coffee,  and  think  it  over  a  bit."  They  were 

13 


194  AT   THE   SIGN   OF   THE   SAVAGE. 

near  one  of  the  principal  cafes,  which  was  full  of 
people  smoking,  and  drinking  the  Viennese  melange 
out  of  tumblers. 

"  By  all  means,"  assented  Colonel  Kenton  with 
inconsequent  courtliness,  "  think  it  over.  It 's  all 
that's  left  us." 

Matters  did  not  look  so  dark,  quite,  after  a  tumbler 
of  coffee  with  milk,  but  they  did  not  continue  to 
brighten  so  much  as  they  ought  with  the  cigars. 
"  Now  let  us  go  through  the  facts  of  the  case,"  said 
the  consul,  and  the  colonel  wearily  reproduced  his 
original  narrative  with  every  possible  circumstance. 
"  But  you  know  all  about  it,"  he  concluded.  "  I  don't 
see  any  end  of  it.  I  don't  see  but  I  'm  to  spend  the 
rest  of  my  life  in  hunting  up  a  hotel  that  professes 
to  be  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth,  and  is  n.'t.  I  never 
knew  anything  like  it." 

"  It  certainly  has  the  charm  of  novelty,"  gloomily 
assented  the  consul :  it  must  be  owned  that  his  gloom 
was  a  respectful  feint.  "  I  have  heard  of  men  run- 
ning away  from  their  hotels,  but  I  never  did  hear 
of  a  hotel  running  away  from  a  man  before  now. 
Yes  —  hold  on  !  I  have,  too.  Aladdin's  palace  — • 
and  with  Mrs.  Aladdin  in  it,  at  that !  It 's  a  parallel 
case."  Here  he  abandoned  himself  as  usual,  while 
Colonel  Kenton  viewed  his  inirth  with  a  dreary  grin. 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  195 

When  he  at  last  caught  his  breath,  "  I  beg  your 
pardon,  I  do,  indeed,"  the  consul  implored.  "  I  know 
just  how  you  feel,  but  of  course  it 's  coming  out 
right.  We  've  been  to  all  the  hotels  I  know  of,  but 
there  must  be  others.  We  11  get  some  more  names 
and  start  at  once ;  and  if  the  genie  has  dropped  your 
hotel  anywhere  this  side  of  Africa  we  shall  find  it. 
If  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  you  can  stay  at  my 
house  to-night  and  start  new  to-m  —  Oh,  I  forgot ! 
—  Mrs.  Kenton  !  Eeally,  the  whole  thing  is  such  an 
amusing  muddle  that  I  can't  seem  to  get  over  it." 
He  looked  at  Kenton  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  but  con- 
tained himself  and  decorously  summoned  a  waiter, 
who  brought  him  whatever  corresponds  to  a  city  di- 
rectory in  Vienna.  "  There  ! "  he  said,  when  he  had 
copied  into  his  note-book  a  number  of  addresses,  "  I 
don't  think  your  hotel  will  escape  us  this  time ; "  and 
discharging  his  account  he  led  the  way  to  the  door, 
Colonel  Kenton  listlessly  following. 

The  wretched  husband  was  now  suffering  all  the 
anguish  of  a  just  remorse,  and  the  heartlessness  of 
his  behavior  in  going  off  upon  his  own  pleasure  the 
whole  afternoon  and  leaving  his  wife  alone  in  a 
strange  hotel  to  pass  the  time  as  she  might  was  no 
less  a  poignant  reproach,  because  it  seemed  so  incon- 
ceivable in  connection  with  what  he  had  always 


196  AT  THE  SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

taken  to  be  the  kindness  and  unselfishness  of  his 
character.  We  all  know  the  sensation  ;  and  I  know 
none,  on  the  whole,  so  disagreeable,  so  little  flat- 
tering, so  persistent  when  once  it  has  established 
itself  in  the  ill-doer's  consciousness.  To  find  out 
that  you  are  not  so  good  or  generous  or  magnan- 
imous as  you  thought  is,  next  to  having  other 
people  find  it  out,  probably  the  unfriendliest  dis- 
covery that  can  be  made.  But  I  suppose  it  has 
its  uses.  Colonel  Kenton  now  saw  the  unhandsome- 
ness  of  his  leaving  his  wife  at  all,  and  he  beheld  in 
its  true  light  his  shabbiness  in  not  going  back  to  tell 
her  he  had  found  his  old  friend  and  was  to  brincj  him 

O 

to  dinner.  The  Lohndiener  would  of  course  have 
taken  him  straight  to  his  hotel,  and  he  would  have 
been  spared  this  shameful  exposure,  which,  he  knew 
well  enough,  Davis  would  never  forget,  but  would 
tell  all  his  life  with  an  ever-increasing  garniture  of 
fiction.  He  cursed  his  weakness  in  allowing  himself 
to  dawdle  about  those  arsenals  and  that  parade- 
ground,  and  to  be  so  far  misguided  by  a  hardened 
bachelor  as  to  admire  certain  yellow-haired  German 
and  black-haired  Hungarian  women  on  the  prom- 
enade ;  when  he  came  to  think  of  going  out  in  that 
sledge,  it  was  with  anathema  maranatha.  He  groaned 
in  spirit,  but  he  owned  that  he  was  rightly  punished, 


AT  THE  SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  197 

though  it  seemed  hard  that  his  wife  should  be 
punished  too.  And  then  he  went  on  miserably  to 
figure  first  her  slight  surprise  at  his  being  gone  so 
long ;  then  her  vague  uneasiness  and  her  conjectures  ; 
then  her  dawning  apprehensions  and  her  helpless- 
ness ;  her  probable  sending  to  the  consulate  to  find 
out  what  had  become  of  him  ;  her  dismay  at  learning 
nothing  of  him  there;  her  waiting  and  waiting  in 
wild  dismay  as  the  moments  and  hours  went  by ;  her 
frenzied  running  to  the  door  at  every  step  and  her 
despair  when  it  proved  not  his.  He  had  seen  her 
suffering  from  less  causes.  And  where  was  she? 
In  what  low,  shabby  tavern  had  he  left  her  ?  He 
choked  with  rage  and  grief,  and  could  hardly  speak 
to  the  gentleman,  a  naturalized  fellow-citizen  of 
Vienna,  to  whom  he  found  the  consul  introducing 
him. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  can't  help  us,"  said  the  consul. 
"  My  friend  here  is  the  victim  of  a  curious  annoy- 
ance ; "  and  he  stated  the  case  in  language  so  sympa- 
thetic and  decorous  as  to  restore  some  small  shreds  of 
the  colonel's  self-respect. 

"  Ah,"  said  their  new  acquaintance,  who  was  mer- 
cifully not  a  man  of  humor,  or  too  polite  to  seem 
so,  "that's  another  trick  of  those  scamps  of  fiacre- 
drivers.  He  took  you  purposely  to  the  wrong  hotel, 


198  AT"  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

and  was  probably  feed  by  the  landlord  for  bringing 
you.  But  why  should  you  make  yourselves  so  much 
trouble  ?  You  know  Colonel  Kenton's  landlord  had 
to  send  his  name  to  the  police  as  soon  as  he  caine, 
and  you  can  get  his  address  there  at  once." 

"  Good-by  ! "  said  the  consul  very  hastily,  with  a 
crestfallen  air.  "  Come  along,  Kenton." 

"  What  did  he  send  my  name  to  the  police  for  ? " 
demanded  the  colonel,  in  the  open  air. 

"Oh,  it's  a  form.  They  do  it  with  all  travel- 
lers. It 's  merely  to  secure  the  imperial  government 
against  your  machinations." 

"And  do  you  mean  to  say  you  ought  to  have 
known,"  cried  the  colonel,  halting  him,  "that  you 
could  have  found  out  where  I  was  from  the  police  at 
once,  before  we  had  walked  all  over  this  moral  vine- 
yard, and  wasted  half  a  precious  lifetime  ?  " 

"  Kenton,"  contritely  admitted  the  other,  "  I  never 
happened  to  think  of  it." 

"  Well,  Davis,  you  're  a  pretty  consul ! "  That  was 
all  the  colonel  said,  and  though  his  friend  was  voluble 
in  self-exculpation  and  condemnation,  he  did  not 
answer  him  a  word  till  they  arrived  at  the  police 
office.  A  few  brief  questions  and  replies  between 
the  commissary  and  the  consul  solved  the  long  mys- 
tery, and  Colonel  Kenton  had  once  more  a  hotel  over 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE  SAVAGE.  199 

his  head.  The  commissary  certified  to  the  respecta- 
bility of  the  place,  but  invited  the  colonel  to  prose- 
cute the  driver  of  the  fiacre  in  behalf  of  the  general 
public,  —  which  seemed  so  right  a  thing  that  the 
colonel  entered  into  it  with  zeal,  and  then  suddenly 
relinquished  it,  remembering  that  he  had  not  the 
rogue's  number,  that  he  had  not  so  much  as  looked  at 
him,  and  that  he  knew  no  more  what  manner  of  man 
he  was  than  his  own  image  in  a  glass.  Under  the 
circumstances,  the  commissary  admitted  that  it  was 
impossible,  and  as  to  bringing  the  landlord  to  justice, 
nothing  could  be  proved  against  him. 

"  Will  you  ask  him,"  said  the  colonel,  "  the  outside 
price  of  a  first-class  assault  and  battery  in  Vienna  ? " 

The  consul  put  as  much  of  this  idea  into  German 
as  the  language  would  contain,  which  was  enough  to 
make  the  commissary  laugh  and  shake  his  head 
warningly. 

"  It  would  n't  do,  he  says,  Kenton ;  it  is  n't  the 
custom  of  the  country." 

"Very  well,  then,  I  don't  see  why  we  should 
occupy  his  time."  He  gave  his  hand  to  the  com- 
missary, whom  he  would  have  liked  to  embrace,  and 
then  hurried  forth  again  with  the  consul.  "  There  is 
one  little  thing  that  worries  me  still,"  he  said.  "  I 
suppose  Mrs.  Kenton  is  simply  crazy  by  this  time." 


200  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

"  Is  she  of  a  very  —  nervous  —  disposition  ? "  fal- 
tered the  consul. 

"  Nervous  ?  Well,  if  you  could  witness  the  ex- 
pression of  her  emotions  in  regard  to  mice,  you 
would  n't  ask  that  question,  Davis." 

At  this  desolating  reply  the  consul  was  mute  for  a 
moment.  Then  he  ventured  :  "  I'  ve  heard  —  or  read, 
I  don't  know  which  —  that  women  have  more  real 
fortitude  than  men,  and  that  they  find  a  kind  of 
moral  support  in  an  actual  emergency  that  they 
would  n't  find  in  —  mice." 

"  Pshaw ! "  answered  the  colonel.  "  You  wait  till 
you  see  Mrs.  Kenton." 

"  Look  here,  Kenton,"  said  the  consul  seriously, 
and  stopping  short.  "  I  've  been  thinking  that  per- 
haps —  I  —  I  had  better  dine  with  you  some  other 
day.  The  fact  is,  the  situation  now  seems  so  purely 
domestic  that  a  third  person,  you  know  — 

"  Come  along  ! "  cried  the  colonel.  "  I  want  you 
to  help  me  out  of  this  scrape.  I  'm  going  to  leave 
that  hotel  as  soon  as  I  can  put  my  things  together, 
and  you  've  got  to  browbeat  the  landlord  for  me 
while  I  go  up  and  reassure  my  wife  long  enough  to 
get  her  out  of  that  den  of  thieves.  What  did  you 
say  the  scoundrelly  name  was  ? " 

"  The  Gasthof  zum  Wilden  Manne." 


AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  SAVAGE.        201 

"  And  what  does  Wildun  Manny  mean  ?  " 

"  The  Sign  of  the  Savage,  we  should  make  it,  I 
suppose,  —  the  Wild  Man." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  whether  it  was  named  after 
me  or  not ;  but  if  I  'd  found  that  sign  anywhere  for 
the  last  four  or  five  hours,  I  should  have  known  it  for 
home.  There  has  n't  been  any  wilder  man  in  Vienna 
since  the  town  was  laid  out,  I  reckon ;  and  I  don't 
believe  there  ever  was  a  wilder  woman  anywhere 
than  Mrs.  Kenton  is  at  this  instant." 

Arrived  at  the  Sign  of  the  Savage,  Colonel  Ken- 
ton  left  his  friend  below  with  the  portier,  and 
mounting  the  stairs  three  steps  at  a  time  flew  to 
his  room.  Flinging  open  the  door,  he  beheld 
his  wife  dressed  in  one  of  her  best  silks,  before 
the  mirror,  bestowing  some  last  prinks,  touching  her 
back  hair  with  her  hand  and  twitching  the  bow 
at  her  throat  into  perfect  place.  She  smiled  at 
him  in  the  glass,  and  said,  "  Where 's  Captain 
Davis  ? " 

"  Captain  Davis  ?  "  gasped  the  colonel,  dry-tongued 
with  anxiety  and  fatigue.  "  Oh  !  He 's  down  there. 
He  '11  be  up  directly/' 

She  turned  and  came  forward  to  him :  "  How  do 
you  like  it  ? "  Then  she  advanced  near  enough  to 
encounter  the  moustache :  "  Why,  how  heated  and 
tired  you  look  ! " 


202  AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

"  Yes,  yes,  —  we  Ve  been  walking.  I  —  I  'm  rather 
late,  ain't  I,  Bessie  ? " 

"  About  an  hour.  I  ordered  dinner  at  six,  and  it 's 
nearly  seven  now."  The  colonel  started  ;  he  had  not 
dared  to  look  at  his  watch,  and  he  had  supposed  it 
must  be  about  ten  o'clock ;  it  seemed  years  since  his 
search  for  the  hotel  had  begun.  But  he  said  nothing  ; 
he  felt  that  in  some  mysterious  and  unmerited  man- 
ner Heaven  was  having  mercy  upon  him,  and  he 
accepted  the  grace  in  the  sneaking  way  we  all  accept 
mercy.  "  I  knew  you  'd  stay  longer  than  you  ex- 
pected, when  you  found  it  was  Davis." 

"  How  did  you  know  it  was  Davis  ? "  asked  the 
colonel,  blindly  feeling  his  way. 

Mrs.  Kenton  picked  up  her  Almanach  de  Gotha. 
"  It  has  all  the  consular  and  diplomatic  corps  in 
it." 

"  I  won't  laugh  at  it  any  more,"  said  the  colonel, 
humbly.  "  Were  n't  you  —  uneasy,  Bessie  ? " 

"  No.  I  mended  away,  here,  and  fussed  round  the 
whole  afternoon,  putting  the  trunks  to  rights ;  and 
I  got  out  this  dress  and  ran  a  bit  of  lace  into  the 
collar ;  and  then  I  ordered  dinner,  for  I  knew  you  'd 
bring  the  captain ;  and  I  took  a  nap,  and  by  that  it 
was  nearly  dinner-time." 

"  Oh !  "  said  the  colonel. 


AT  THE  SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  203 

"  Yes  ;  and  the  head-waiter  was  as  polite  as  peas ; 
they've  all  been  very  attentive.  I  shall  certainly 
recommend  everybody  to  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth." 

"  Yes,"  assented  the  wretched  man.  "  I  reckon  it 's 
about  the  best  hotel  in  Yienna." 

"  Well,  now,  go  and  get  Captain  Davis.  You  can 
bring  him  right  in  here ;  we  're  only  travellers.  Why, 
what  makes  you  act  so  queerly  ?  Has  anything  hap- 
pened ? "  Mrs.  Kenton  was  surprised  to  find  herself 
gathered  into  her  husband's  arms  and  embraced 
with  a  rapture  for  which  she  could  see  no  par- 
ticular reason. 

"  Bessie,"  said  her  husband,  "  I  told  you  this  morn- 
ing that  you  were  amiable  as  well  as  bright  and 
beautiful ;  I  now  wish  to  add  that  you  are  sensible. 
I  'm  awfully  ashamed  of  being  gone  so  long.  But  the 
fact  is  we  had  a  little  accident.  Our  sleigh  broke 
down  out  in  the  country,  and  we  had  to  walk  back." 

"  Oh,  you  poor  old  fellow !  No  wonder  you  look 
tired." 

He  accepted  the  balm  of  her  compassion  like  a 
candid  and  innocent  man  :  "  Yes,  it  was  pretty  rough. 
But  /  did  n't  mind  it,  except  on  your  account.  I 
thought  the  delay  would  make  you  uneasy."  With 
that  he  went  out  to  the  head  of  the  stairs  and  called, 
"  Davis  ! " 


204  AT  THE  SIGN   OF  THE  SAVAGE. 

"  Yes  !  "  responded  the  consul ;  and  he  ascended  the 
stairs  in  such  trepidation  that  he  tripped  and  fell  part 
of  the  way  up. 

"  Have  you  been  saying  anything  to  that  man 
about  my  going  away  ?  " 

"  No,  I  Ve  simply  been  blowing  him  up  on  the 
fiacre  driver's  account.  He  swears  they  are  innocent 
of  collusion.  But  of  course  they  're  not." 

"  Well,  all  right.  Mrs.  Kenton  is  waiting  for  us 
to  go  to  dinner.  And  look  here,"  whispered  the 
colonel,  "  don't  you  open  your  mouth,  except  to  put 
something  into  it,  till  I  give  you  the  cue." 

The  dinner  was  charming,  and  had  suffered  little 
or  nothing  from  the  delay.  Mrs.  Kenton  was  in  rap- 
tures with  it,  and  after  a  thimbleful  of  the  good  Hun- 
garian wine  had  attuned  her  tongue,  she  began  to  sing 
the  praises  of  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth. 

"  The  K  — "  began  the  consul,  who  had  hitherto 
guarded  himself  very  well.  But  the  colonel  arrested 
him  at  that  letter  with  a  terrible  look.  He  returned 
the  look  with  a  glance  of  intelligence,  and  resumed  : 
"The  Kaiserin  Elisabeth  has  the  best  cook  in  Vi- 
enna." 

"  Arid  everybody  about  has  such  nice,  honest  faces," 
said  Mrs.  Kenton.  "  I  'm  sure  I  could  n't  have  felt 
anxious  if  you  had  n't  come  till  midnight :  I  knew  I 
was  perfectly  secure  here." 


AT  THE  SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  205 

"  Quite  right,  quite  right/'  said  the  consul.  "  All 
classes  of  the  Viennese  are  so  faithful.  Now,  I  dare 
say  you  could  have  trusted  that  driver  of  yours,  who 
brought  you  here  before  daylight  this  morning,  with 
untold  gold.  No  stranger  need  fear  any  of  the  tricks 
ordinarily  practised  upon  travellers  in  Vienna.  They 
are  a  truthful,  honest,  virtuous  population,  —  like  all 
the  Germans  in  fact." 

"  There,  Ned  !  What  do  you  say  to  that,  with  your 
Black  Forest  nonsense  ? "  triumphed  Mrs.  Kentoii. 

Colonel  Kenton  laughed  sheepishly  :  "  Well,  I  take 
it  all  back,  Bessie.  I  was  n't  quite  satisfied  with  the 
appearance  of  the  Black  Forest  country  when  I  came 
to  it,"  he  explained  to  the  consul,  "  and  Mrs.  Kenton 
and  I  had  our  little  joke  about  the  fraudulent  nature 
of  the  Germans." 

"  Our  little  joke  !  "  retorted  his  wife.  "  I  wish  we 
were  going  to  stay  longer  in  Vienna.  They  say  you 
have  to  make  bargains  for  everything  in  Italy,  and 
here  I  suppose  I  could  shop  just  as  at  home." 

"Precisely,"  said  the  consul;  the  Viennese  shop- 
keepers being  the  most  notorious  Jews  in  Europe. 

"  Oh,  we  can't  stop  longer  than  till  the  morning," 
remarked  the  colonel.  "I  shall  be  sorry  to  leave 
Vienna  and  the  Kaiserin  Elizabeth,  but  we  must 
go." 


206  AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE. 

"  Better  hang  on  awhile ;  you  won't  find  many 
hotels  like  it,  Kenton,"  observed  his  friend. 

"  No,  I  suppose  not,"  sighed  the  colonel ;  "  but  I  '11 
get  the  address  of  their  correspondent  in  Venice  and 
stop  there." 

Thus  these  craven  spirits  combined  to  delude  and 
deceive  the  helpless  woman  of  whom  half  an  hour 
before  they  had  stood  in  such  abject  terror.  If  they 
had  found  her  in  hysterics  they  would  have  pitied 
and  respected  her ;  but  her  good  sense,  her  amiability, 
and  noble  self-control  subjected  her  to  their  shameless 
mockery. 

Colonel  Kenton  followed  the  consul  downstairs 
when  he  went  away,  and  pretended  to  justify  himself. 
"  I  '11  tell  her  one  of  these  days,"  he  said,  "  but  there 's 
no  use  distressing  her  now." 

"  I  did  n't  understand  you  at  first,"  said  the  other. 
"  But  I  see  now  it  was  the  only  way." 

"  Yes  ;  saves  needless  suffering.  I  say,  Davis,  this 
is  about  an  even  thing  between  us  ?  A  United  States 
consul  ought  to  be  of  some  use  to  his  fellow-citizens 
abroad ;  and  if  he  allows  them  to  walk  their  legs  off 
hunting  up  a  hotel  which  he  could  have  found  at  the 
first  police-station  if  he  had  happened  to  think  of 
it,  he  won't  be  very  anxious  to  tell  the  joke,  I 
suppose  ? " 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   SAVAGE.  207 

"  I  don't  propose  to  write  home  to  the  papers  about 
it." 

"All  right."  So,  in  the  court-yard  of  the  Wild 
Man,  they  parted. 

Long  after  that  Mrs.  Kenton  continued  to  re- 
commend people  to  the  Kaiserin  Elisabeth.  Even 
when  the  truth  was  made  known  to  her  she  did 
not  see  much  to  laugh  at.  "  I  'm  sure  I  was  always 
very  glad  the  colonel  did  n't  tell  me  at  once,"  she 
said,  "  for  if  I  had  known  what  I  had  been  through,  I 
certainly  should  have  gone  distracted." 


TONELLFS  MAREIAGE. 


TONELLFS  MAEEIAGE. 

THERE  was  no  richer  man  in  Venice  than  Tom- 
maso  Tonelli,  who  had  enough  on  his  florin  a  day ; 
and  none  younger  than  he,  who  owned  himself  forty- 
seven  years  old.  He  led  the  cheerfullest  life  in  the 
world,  and  was  quite  a  monster  of  content ;  hut 
when  I  come  to  sum  up  his  pleasures,  I  fear  that  I 
shall  appear  to  my  readers  to  be  celebrating  a  very 
insipid  and  monotonous  existence.  I  doubt  if  even 
a  summary  of  his  duties  could  be  made  attractive  to 
the  conscientious  imagination  of  hard-working  peo- 
ple ;  for  Tonelli's  labors  were  not  killing,  nor,  for 
that  matter,  were  those  of  any  Venetian  that  I  ever 
knew.  He  had  a  stated  employment  in  the  office  of 
the  notary  Cenarotti ;  and  he  passed  there  so  much 
of  every  working  day  as  lies  between  nine  and  five 
o'clock,  writing  upon  deeds  and  conveyances  and  peti- 
tions and  other  legal  instruments  for  the  notary,  who 
sat  in  an  adjoining  room,  secluded  from  nearly  every- 
thing in  this  world  but  snuff.  He  called  Tonelli  by 
the  sound  of  a  little  bell ;  and,  when  he  turned  to  take 


212  TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE. 

a  paper  from  his  safe,  he  seemed  to  be  abstracting 
some  secret  from  long-lapsed  centuries,  which  he 
restored  again,  and  locked  back  among  the  dead  ages 
when  his  clerk  replaced  the  document  in  his  hands. 
These  hands  were  very  soft  and  pale,  and  their  owner 
was  a  colorless  old  man,  whose  silvery  hair  fell  down 
a  face  nearly  as  white  ;  but,  as  he  has  almost  nothing 
to  do  with  the  present  affair,  I  shall  merely  say  that, 
having  been  compromised  in  the  last  revolution,  he 
had  been  obliged  to  live  ever  since  in  perfect  retire- 
ment, and  that  he  seemed  to  have  been  blanched  in 
this  social  darkness  as  a  plant  is  blanched  by  growth 
in  a  cellar.  His  enemies  said  that  he  was  naturally 
a  timid  man,  but  they  could  not  deny  that  he  had 
seen  things  to  make  the  brave  afraid,  or  that  he  had 
now  every  reason  from  the  police  to  be  secret  and 
cautious  in  his  life.  He  could  hardly  be  called  com- 
pany for  Tonelli,  who  must  have  found  the  day  in- 
tolerably long  but  for  the  visit  which  the  notary's 
pretty  granddaughter  contrived  to  pay  every  morning 
in  the  cheerless  mezzd.  She  commonly  appeared  on 
some  errand  from  her  mother,  but  her  chief  business 
seemed  to  be  to  share  with  Tonelli  the  modest  feast 
of  rumor  and  hearsay  which  he  loved  to  furnish  forth 
for  her,  and  from  which  doubtless  she  carried  back 
some  fragments  of  gossip  to  the  family  apartments. 


TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE.  213 

Tonelli  called  her,  with  that  mingled  archness  and 
tenderness  of  the  Venetians,  his  Paronsina ;  and,  as 
he  had  seen  her  grow  up  from  the  smallest  possible 
of  Little  Mistresses,  there  was  no  shyness  between 
them,  and  they  were  fully  privileged  to  each  other's 
society  by  her  mother.  When  she  flitted  away  again, 
Tonelli  was  left  to  a  stillness  broken  only  by  the  soft 
breathing  of  the  old  man  in  the  next  room,  and  by 
the  shrill  discourse  of  his  own  loquacious  pen,  so  that 
he  was  commonly  glad  enough  when  it  came  five 
o'clock.  At  this  hour  he  put  on  his  black  coat,  that 
shone  with  constant  use,  and  his  faithful  silk  hat, 
worn  down  to  the  pasteboard  with  assiduous  brush- 
ing, and  caught  up  a  very  jaunty  cane  in  his  hand. 
Then,  saluting  the  notary,  he  took  his  way  to  the 
little  restaurant,  where  it  was  his  custom  to  dine,  and 
had  his  tripe  soup  and  his  risotto,  or  dish  of  fried 
liver,  in  the  austere  silence  imposed  by  the  presence 
of  a  few  poor  Austrian  captains  and  lieutenants.  It 
was  not  that  the  Italians  feared  to  be  overheard  by 
these  enemies ;  but  it  was  good  dimostrazione  to  be 
silent  before  the  oppressor,  and  not  let  him  know 
that  they  even  enjoyed  their  dinners  well  enough, 
under  his  government,  to  chat  sociably  over  them. 
To  tell  the  truth,  this  duty  was  an  irksome  one  to  To- 
nelli, who  liked  far  better  to  dine,  as  he  sometimes 


214  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

did,  at  a  cook-shop,  where  he  met  the  folk  of  the  peo- 
ple (gente  del  popolo),  as  he  called  them ;  and  where, 
though  himself  a  person  of  civil  condition,  he  dis- 
coursed freely  with  the  other  guests,  and  ate  of  their 
humble  but  relishing  fare.  He  was  known  among 
them  as  Sior  Tommaso ;  and  they  paid  him  a  hom- 
age, which  they  enjoyed  equally  with  him,  as  a  per- 
son not  only  learned  in  the  law,  but  a  poet  of  gift 
enough  to  write  wedding  and  funeral  verses,  and  a 
veteran  who  had  fought  for  the  dead  Eepublic  of 
Forty-eight.  They  honored  him  as  a  most  travelled 
gentleman,  who  had  been  in  the  Tyrol,  and  who  could 
have  spoken  German,  if  he  had  not  despised  that 
tongue  as  the  language  of  the  ugly  Croats,  like  one 
born  to  it.  Who,  for  example,  spoke  Venetian  more 
elegantly  than  Sior  Tominaso  ?  or  Tuscan,  when  he 
chose  ?  and  yet  he  was  poor,  —  a  man  of  that  genius  ! 
Patience  !  When  Garibaldi  came,  we  should  see  ! 
The  facchini  and  gondoliers,  who  had  been  wagging 
their  tongues  all  day  at  the  church  corners  and  fer- 
ries, were  never  tired  of  talking  of  this  gifted  friend 
of  theirs,  when,  having  ended  some  impressive  dis- 
course or  some  dramatic  story,  he  left  them  with  a 
sudden  adieu,  and  walked  quickly  away  toward  the 
liiva  degli  Schiavoni. 

Here,  whether  he  had  dined  at  the  cook-shop,  or  at 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  215 

his  more  genteel  and  gloomy  restaurant  of  the  Bronze 
Horses,  it  was  his  custom  to  lounge  an  hour  or  two 
over  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  Virginia  cigar  at  one  of  the 
many  caffes, and  to  watch  all  the  world  as  it  passed  to 
and  fro  on  the  quay.  Tonelli  was  gray,  he  did  not 
disown  it ;  but  he  always  maintained  that  his  heart 
was  still  young,  and  that  there  was,  moreover,  a  great 
difference  in  persons  as  to  age,  which  told  in  his 
favor.  So  he  loved  to  sit  there,  and  look  at  the 
ladies ;  and  he  amused  himself  by  inventing  a  pet 
name  for  every  face  he  saw,  which  he  used  to  teach 
to  certain  friends  of  his,  when  they  joined  him  over 
his  coffee.  These  friends  were  all  young  enough  to 
be  his  sons,  and  wise  enough  to  be  his  fathers ;  but 
they  were  always  glad  to  be  with  him,  for  he  "had  so 
cheery  a  wit  and  so  good  a  heart  that  neither  his 
years  nor  his  follies  could  make  any  one  sad.  His 
kind  face  beamed  with  smiles,  when  Pennellini,  chief 
among  the  youngsters  in  his  affections,  appeared  on 
the  top  of  the  nearest  bridge,  and  thence  descended 
directly  towards  his  little  table.  Then  it  was  that  he 
drew  out  the  straw  which  ran  through  the  centre  of 
his  long  Virginia,  and  lighted  the  pleasant  weed,  and 
gave  himself  up  to  the  delight  of  making  aloud  those 
comments  on  the  ladies  which  he  had  hitherto  stifled 
in  his  breast.  Sometimes  he  would  feign  himself  too 


216  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

deeply  taken  with  a  passing  beauty  to  remain  quiet, 
and  would  make  bis  friend  follow  with  him  in  chase 
of  her  to  the  Public  Gardens.  But  he  was  a  fickle 
lover,  and  wanted  presently  to  get  back  to  his  caffe, 
where,  at  decent  intervals  of  days  or  weeks,  he  would 
indulge  himself  in  discovering  a  spy  in  some  harm- 
less stranger,  who,  in  going  out,  looked  curiously  at 
the  scar  Tonelli's  cheek  had  brought  from  the  battle 
of  Vicenza  in  1848. 

"  Something  of  a  spy,  no  ? "  he  asked  at  these 
times  of  the  waiter,  who,  flattered  by  the  penetration 
of  a  frequenter  of  his  caffe,  and  the  implication  that 
it  was  thought  seditious  enough  to  be  watched  by  the 
police,  assumed  a  pensive  importance,  and  answered, 
"  Something  of  a  spy,  certainly." 

Upon  this  Tonelli  was  commonly  encouraged  to 
proceed :  "  Did  I  ever  tell  you  how  I  once  sent 
one  of  those  ugly  muzzles  out  of  a  caffe  ?  I  knew 
him  as  soon  as  I  saw  him,  —  I  am  never  mistaken 
in  a  spy,  —  and  I  went  with  my  newspaper,  and  sat 
down  close  at  his  side.  Then  I  whispered  to  him 
across  the  sheet,  '  We  are  two.'  '  Eh  ? '  says  he.  '  It 
is  a  very  small  caffe,  and  there  is  no  need  of  more 
than  one,'  and  then  I  stared  at  him  and  frowned. 
He  looks  at  me  fixedly  a  moment,  then  gathers  up 
his  hat  and  gloves,  and  takes  his  pestilency  off." 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  217 

The  waiter,  who  had  heard  this  story,  man  and 
boy,  a  hundred  times,  made  a  quite  successful  show 
of  enjoying  it,  as  he  walked  away  with  Tonelli's  fee 
of  half  a  cent  in  his  pocket.  Tonelli  then  had  left 
from  his  day's  salary  enough  to  pay  for  the  ice  which 
he  ate  at  ten  o'clock,  but  which  he  would  sometimes 
forego,  in  order  to  give  the  money  in  charity,  though 
more  commonly  he  indulged  himself,  and  put  off  the 
beggar  with,  "Another  time,  my  dear.  I  have  no 
leisure  now  to  discuss  those  matters  with  thee." 

On  holidays  this  routine  of  Tonelli's  life  was  va- 
ried. In  the  forenoon  he  went  to  mass  at  St.  Mark's, 
to  see  the  beauty  and  fashion  of  the  city ;  and  then 
he  took  a  walk  with  his  four  or  five  young  friends,  or 
went  with  them  to  play  at  bowls,  or  even  made  an 
excursion  to  the  main  land,  where  they  hired  a  car- 
riage, and  all  those  Venetians  got  into  it,  like  so 
many  seamen,  and  drove  the  horse  with  as  little 
mercy  as  if  he  had  been  a  sail-boat.  At  seven 
o'clock  Tonelli  dined  with  the  notary,  next  whom  he 
sat  at  table,  and  for  whom  his  quaint  pleasantries 
had  a  zest  that  inspired  the  Paronsina  and  her 
mother  to  shout  them  into  his  dull  ears,  that  he 
might  lose  none  of  them.  He  laughed  a  kind  of  faded 
laugh  at  them,  and,  rubbing  his  pale  hands  together, 
showed  by  his  act  that  he  did  not  think  his  best 


218  TONELLl'S    MARRIAGE. 

wine  too  good  for  his  kindly  guest.  The  signora 
feigned  to  take  the  same  delight  shown  by  her 
father  and  daughter  in  Tonelli's  drolleries ;  but  I 
doubt  if  she  had  a  great  sense  of  his  humor,  or,  in- 
deed, cared  anything  for  it  save  as  she  perceived  that 
it  gave  pleasure  to  those  she  loved.  Otherwise,  how- 
ever, she  had  a  sincere  regard  for  him,  for  he  was 
most  useful  and  devoted  to  her  in  her  quality  of 
widowed  mother ;  and  if  she  could  not  feel  wit,  she 
could  feel  gratitude,  which  is  perhaps  the  rarer  gift, 
if  not  the  more  respectable. 

The  Little  Mistress  was  dependent  upon  him  for 
nearly  all  the  pleasures  and  for  the  only  excitements 
of  her  life.  As  a  young  girl  she  was  at  best  a  sort 
of  caged  bird,  who  had  to  be  guarded  against  the 
youth  of  the  other  sex  as  if  they,  on  their  part,  were 
so  many  marauding  and  ravening  cats.  During  most 
days  of  the  year  the  Paronsina's  parrot  had  almost  as 
much  freedom  as  she.  He  could  leave  his  gilded 
prison  when  he  chose,  and  promenade  the  notary's 
house  as  far  down  as  the  marble  well  in  the  sunless 
court,  and  the  Paronsina  could  do  little  more.  The 
signora  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  letting  the 
parrot  walk  across  their  campo  alone  as  her  daughter, 
though  the  local  dangers,  either  to  bird  or  beauty, 
could  not  have  been  very  great.  The  green-grocer 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  219 

of  that  sequestered  campo  was  an  old  woman,  the 
apothecary  was  gray,  and  his  shop  was  haunted  by 
none  but  superannuated  physicians ;  the  baker,  the 
butcher,  the  waiters  at  the  caffe  were  all  profession- 
ally, and,  as  purveyors  to  her  family,  out  of  the  ques- 
tion ;  the  sacristan,  who  sometimes  appeared  at  the 
perruquier's  to  get  a  coal  from  under  the  curling- 
tongs  to  kindle  his  censer,  had  but  one  eye,  which  he 
kept  single  to  the  service  of  the  Church,  and  his  per- 
quisite of  candle-drippings ;  and  I  hazard  little  in 
saying  that  the  Paronsina  might  have  danced  a  polka 
around  Campo  San  Giuseppe  without  jeopardy  so  far 
as  concerned  the  handsome  wood-carver,  for  his  wife 
always  sat  in  the  shop  beside  him.  Nevertheless,  a 
custom  is  not  idly  handed  down  by  mother  to  daugh- 
ter from  the  dawn  of  Christianity  to  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century;  and  I  cannot  deny  that 
the  local  perruquier,  though  stricken  in  years,  was 
still  so  far  kept  fresh  by  the  immortal  youth  of  the 
wax  heads  in  his  window  as  to  have  something  beau- 
ish  about  him  ;  or  that,  just  at  the  moment  the  Paron- 
sina chanced  to  go  into  the  campo  alone,  a  leone  from 
Florian's  might  not  have  been  passing  through  it, 
when  he  would  certainly  have  looked  boldly  at  her, 
perhaps  spoken  to  her,  and  possibly  pounced  at  once 
upon  her  fluttering  heart.  So  by  day  the  Paronsina 


220  TONELLl'S   MAKRIAGE. 

rarely  wenfc  out,  and  she  never  emerged  unattended 
from  the  silence  and  shadow  of  her  grandfather's 
house. 

If  I  were  here  telling  a  story  of  the  Paronsina,  or 
indeed  any  story  at  all,  1,  might  suffer  myself  to  en- 
large somewhat  upon  the  daily  order  of  her  secluded 
life,  and  show  how  the  seclusion  of  other  Venetian 
girls  was  the  widest  liberty  as  compared  with  hers ; 
but  I  have  no  right  to  play  with  the  reader's  patience 
in  a  performance  that  can  promise  no  excitement  of 
incident,  no  charm  of  invention.  Let  him  figure  to 
himself,  if  he  will,  the  ancient  and  half-ruined  palace 
in  which  the  notary  dwelt,  with  a  gallery  running 
along  one  side  of  its  inner  court,  the  slender  pillars 
supporting  upon  the  corroded  sculpture  of  their  capi- 
tals a  clinging  vine,  that  dappled  the  floor  with  pal- 
pitant light  and  shadow  in  the  afternoon  sun.  The 
gate,  whose  exquisite  Saracenic  arch  grew  into  a 
carven  flame,  was  surmounted  by  the  armorial  bear- 
ings of  a  family  that  died  of  its  sins  against  the 
Serenest  Kepublic  long  ago  ;  the  marble  cistern  which 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  court  had  still  a  ducal 
rose  upon  either  of  its  four  sides ;  and  little  lions  of 
stone  perched  upon  the  posts  at  the  head  of  the  mar- 
ble stairway  climbing  to  the  gallery,  their  fierce 
aspects  worn  smooth  and  amiable  by  the  contact  of 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  221 

hands  that  for  many  ages  had  mouldered  in  tombs. 
Toward  the  canal  the  palace  windows  had  been  im- 
memorially  bricked  up  for  some  reason  or  caprice, 
and  no  morning  sunlight,  save  such  as  shone  from 
the  bright  eyes  of  the  Paronsina,  ever  looked  into  the 
dim  halls.  It  was  a  fit  abode  for  such  a  man  as  the 
notary,  exiled  in  the  heart  of  his  native  city,  and  it 
was  not  unfriendly  in  its  influences  to  a  quiet  vege- 
tation like  the  signora's  ;  but  to  the  Paronsina  it  was 
sad  as  Venice  itself,  where,  in  some  moods,  I  have 
wondered  that  any  sort  of  youth  could  have  the  cour- 
age to  exist.  Nevertheless,  the  Paronsina  had  con- 
trived to  grow  up  here  a  child  of  the  gayest  and 
archest  spirit,  and  to  lead  a  life  of  due  content,  till 
after  her  return  home  from  the  comparative  freedom 
and  society  of  Madame  Prateux's  school,  where  she 
spent  three  years  in  learning  all  polite  accomplish- 
ments, and  whence  she  came,  with  brilliant  hopes  and 
romances  ready  imagined,  for  any  possible  exigency 
of  the  future.  She  adored  all  the  modern  Italian 
poets,  and  read  their  verse  with  that  stately  and 
rhythmical  fulness  of  voice  which  often  made  it  sub- 
lime and  always  pleasing.  She  was  a  relentless  pa- 
triot, an  Italianissima  of  the  vividest  green,  white, 
and  red ;  and  she  could  interpret  the  historical  novels 
of  her  countrymen  in  their  subtilest  application  to 


222  TONELLI'S   MARKIAGE. 

the  modern "  enemies  of  Italy.  Bat  all  the  Paron- 
siria's  gifts  and  accomplishments  were  to  poor  pur- 
pose, if  the}7  brought  no  young  men  a- wooing  under 
her  balcony ;  and  it  was  to  no  effect  that  her  fervid 
fancy  peopled  the  palace's  empty  halls  with  stately 
and  gallant  company  out  of  Marco  Visconti,  Nicolo  de' 
Lapi,  Margherita  Pusterla,  and  the  other  romances, 
since  she  could  not  hope  to  receive  any  practica- 
ble offer  of  marriage  from  the  heroes  thus  assembled. 
Her  grandfather  invited  no  guests  of  more  substan- 
tial presence  to  his  house.  In  fact,  the  police  watched 
him  too  narrowly  to  permit  him  to  receive  society, 
even  had  he  been  so  minded,  and  for  kindred  reasons 
his  family  paid  few  visits  in  the  city.  To  leave  Ven- 
ice, except  for  the  autumnal  villeggiatura  was  almost 
out  of  the  question;  repeated  applications  at  the 
Luogotenenza  won  the  two  ladies  but  a  tardy  and 
scanty  grace ;  and  the  use  of  the  passport  allowing 
them  to  spend  a  few  weeks  in  Florence  was  attended 
with  so  much  vexation,  in  coming  and  going  upon 
the  imperial  confines,  and  when  they  returned 
home  they  were  subject  to  so  great  fear  of  perqui- 
sition from  the  police,  that  it  was  after  all  rather 
a  mortification  than  a  pleasure  that  the  government 
had  given  them.  The  signora  received  her  few  ac- 
quaintances once  a  week;  but  the  Paronsina  found 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  223 

the  old  ladies  tedious  over  their  cups  of  coffee  or 
tumblers  of  lemonade,  and  declared  that  her  mam- 
ma's reception  days  were  a  martyrdom,  —  actually  a 
martyrdom,  to  her.  She  was  full  of  life  and  the 
beautiful  and  tender  longing  of  youth  ;  she  had  a 
warm  heart  and  a  sprightly  wit ;  but  she  led  an  exis- 
tence scarce  livelier  than  a  ghost's,  and  she  was  so  poor 
in  friends  and  resources  that  she  shuddered  to  think 
what  must  become  of  her  if  Toiielli  should  die.  It 
was  not  possible,  thanks  to  God  !  that  he  should 
marry. 

The  signora  herself  seldom  cared  to  go  out,  for  the 
reason  that  it  was  too  cold  in  winter  and  too  hot  in 
summer.  In  the  one  season  she  clung  all  day  to  her 
wadded  arm-chair,  with  her  sealdino  in  her  lap ;  and 
in  the  other  season  she  found  it  a  sufficient  diversion 
to  sit  in  the  great  hall  of  the  palace,  and  be  fanned 
by  the  salt  breeze  that  came  from  the  Adriatic 
through  the  vine-garlanded  gallery.  But  besides 
this  habitual  inclemency  of  the  weather,  which  for- 
bade out-door  exercise  nearly  the  whole  year,  it  was 
a  displeasure  to  walk  in  Venice  on  account  of  the 
stairways  of  the  bridges  ;  and  the  signora  much  pre- 
ferred to  wait  till  they  went  to  the  country  in  the 
autumn,  when  she  always  rode  to  take  the  air.  The 
exceptions  to  her  custom  were  formed  by  those  after- 


224  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

dinner  promenades  which  she  sometimes  made  on 
holidays,  in  summer.  Then  she  put  on  her  richest 
black,  and  the  Paronsina  dressed  herself  in  her  best, 
and  they  both  went  to  walk  on  the  Molo,  before  the 
pillars  of  the  lion  and  the  saint,  under  the  escort  of 
Tonelli. 

It  often  happened  that,  at  the  hour  of  their  arrival 
on  the  Molo,  the  moon  was  coming  up  over  the  low 
bank  of  the  Lido  in  the  east,  and  all  that  prospect  of 
ship-bordered  quay,  island,  and  lagoon,  which,  at  its 
worst,  is  everything  that  heart  can  wish,  was  then  at 
its  best,  and  far  beyond  words  to  paint.  On* the  right 
stretched  the  long  Giudecca,  with  the  domes  and 
towers  of  its  Palladian  church,  and  the  swelling  foli- 
age of  its  gardens,  and  its  line  of  warehouses  — 
painted  pink,  as  if  even  Business,  grateful  to  be  tol- 
erated amid  such  lovely  scenes,  had  striven  to  adorn 
herself.  In  front  lay  San  Giorgio,  picturesque  with 
its .  church  and  pathetic  with  its  political  prisons ; 
and,  farther  away  to  the  east  again,  the  gloomy  mass 
of  the  madhouse  at  San  Servolo,  and  then  the  slen- 
der campanili  of  the  Armenian  convent  rose  over  the 
gleaming  and  tremulous  water.  Tonelli  took  in  the 
beauty  of  the  scene  with  no  more  consciousness  than 
a  bird ;  but  the  Paronsina  had  learnt  from  her  ro- 
mantic poets  and  novelists  to  be  complimentary  to 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  225 

prospects,  and  her  heart  gurgled  out  in  rapturous 
praises  of  this.  The  unwonted  freedom  exhilarated 
her ;  there  was  intoxication  in  the  encounter  of  faces 
on  the  promenade,  in  the  dazzle  and  glimmer  of  the 
lights,  and  even  in  the  music  of  the  Austrian  band 
playing  in  the  Piazza,  as  it  came  purified  to  her 
patriotic  ear  by  the  distance.  There  were  none  but 
Italians  upon  the  Molo,  and  one  might  walk  there 
without  so  much  as  touching  an  officer  with  the  hem 
of  one's  garment ;  and,  a  little  later,  when  the  band 
ceased  playing,  she  should  go  with  the  other  Italians 
and  possess  the  Piazza  for  one  blessed  hour.  In  the 
mean  time,  the  Paronsina  had  a  sharp  little  tongue ; 
and,  after  she  had  flattered  the  landscape,  and  had, 
from  her  true  heart,  once  for  all,  saluted  the  prome- 
naders  as  brothers  and  sisters  in  Italy,  she  did  not 
mind  making  fun  of  their  peculiarities  of  dress  and 
person.  She  was  signally  sarcastic  upon  such  ladies 
as  Tonelli  chanced  to  admire,  and  often  so  stung  him 
with  her  jests  that  he  was  glad  when  Pennellini  ap- 
peared, as  he  always  did  exactly  at  nine  o'clock,  and 
joined  the  ladies  in  their  promenade,  asking  and  an- 
sweriug  all  those  questions  of  ceremony  which  form 
Venetian  greeting.  He  was  a  youth  of  the  most 
methodical  exactness  in  his  whole  life,  and  could  no 
more  have  arrived  on  the  Molo  a  moment  before  or 

15 


223  TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE. 

after  nine  than  the  bronze  giants  on  the  clock-tower 
co  aid  have  hastened  or  lingered  in  striking  the  hour. 
Nature,  which  had  made  him  thus  punctual  and  pre- 
cise, gave  him  also  good  looks,  and  a  most  amiable 
kindness  of  heart.  The  Paronsina  cared  nothing  at 
all  for  him  in  his  quality  of  handsome  young  fellow ; 
but  she  prized  him  as  an  acquaintance  whom  she 
might  salute,  and  be  saluted  by,  in  a  city  where  her 
grandfather's  isolation  kept  her  strange  to  nearly  all 
the  faces  she  saw.  Sometimes  her  evenings  on  the 
Molo  wasted  away  without  the  exchange  of  a  word 
save  with  Tonelli,  for  her  mother  seldom  talked ; 
and  then  it  was  quite  possible  her  teasing  was  greater 
than  his  patience,  and  that  he  grew  taciturn  under 
her  tongue.  At  such  times  she  hailed  Pennellini's 
appearance  with  a  double  delight ;  for,  if  he  never 
joined  in  her  attacks  upon  Tonelli's  favorites,  he 
always  enjoyed  them,  and  politely  applauded  them. 
If  his  friend  reproached  him  for  this  treason,  he 
made  him  every  amend  in  answering,  "  She  is  jeal- 
ous, Tonelli,"  —  a  wily  compliment,  which  had  the 
most  intense  effect  in  coming  from  lips  ordinarily  so 
sincere  as  his. 

The  signora  was  weary  of  the  promenade  long 
before  the  Austrian  music  ceased  in  the  Piazza,  and 
was  very  glad  when  it  came  time  for  them  to  leave 


TONELLl'S    MARRIAGE.  227 

the  Molo,  and  go  and  sit  down  to  an  ice  at  the  Gaffe 
Florian.  This  was  the  supreme  hour  to  the  Paron- 
sina,  the  one  heavenly  excess  of  her  restrained  and 
eventless  life.  All  about  her  were  scattered  tranquil 
Italian  idlers,  listening  to  the  music  of  the  strolling 
minstrels  who  had  succeeded  the  military  band ;  on 
either  hand  sat  her  friends,  and  she  had  thus  the 
image  of  that  tender  devotion  without  which,  a  young 
girl  is  said  not  to  be  perfectly  happy ;  while  the  very 
heart  of  adventure  seemed  to  bound  in  her  exchange 
of  glances  with  a  handsome  foreigner  at  a  neighbor- 
ing table.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Piazza  a  few  of- 
ficers still  lingered  at  the  Gaffe  Quadri ;  and  at  the 
Specchi  sundry  groups  of  citizens  in  their  dark  dress 
contrasted  well  with  these  white  uniforms ;  but,  for 
the  most  part,  the  moon  and  gas-jets  shone  upon  the 
broad,  empty  space  of  the  Piazza,  whose  loneliness 
the  presence  of  a  few  belated  promenaders  only 
served  to  render  conspicuous.  As  the  giants  ham- 
mered eleven  upon  the  great  bell,  the  Austrian 
sentinel,  under  the  Ducal  Palace,  uttered  a  long, 
reverberating  cry ;  and  soon  after  a  patrol  of  sol- 
diers clanked  across  the  Piazza,  and  passed  with 
echoing  feet  through  the  arcade  into  the  narrow  and 
devious  streets  beyond.  The  young  girl  found  it 
hard  to  rend  herself  from  the  dreamy  pleasure  of  the 


228  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

scene,  or  even  to  turn  from  the  fine  impersonal  pain 
which  the  presence  of  the  Austrians  in  the  spectacle 
inflicted.  All  gave  an  impression  something  like  that 
of  the  theatre,  with  the  advantage  that  here  one's  self 
was  part  of  the  pantomime ;  and  in  those  days,  when 
nearly  everything  but  the  puppet-shows  was  forbid- 
den to  patriots,  it  was  altogether  the  greatest  enjoy- 
ment possible  to  the  Paronsina.  The  pensive  charm 
of  the  place  imbued  all  the  little  company  so  deeply 
that  they  scarcely  broke  it,  as  they  loitered  slowly 
homeward  through  the  deserted  Merceria.  When 
they  reached  the  Campo  San  Salvatore,  on  many  a 
lovely  summer's  midnight,  their  footsteps  seemed  to 
waken  a  nightingale  whose  cage  hung  from  a  lofty 
balcony  there ;  for  suddenly,  at  their  coming,  the 
bird  broke  into  a  wild  and  thrilling  song,  that  touched 
them  all,  and  suffused  the  tender  heart  of  the  Paron- 
sina with  an  inexpressible  pathos. 

Alas !  she  had  so  often  returned  thus  from  the 
Piazza,  and  no  stealthy  footstep  had  followed  hers 
homeward  with  love's  persistence  and  diffidence ! 
She  was  young,  she  knew,  and  she  thought  not 
quite  dull  or  hideous ;  but  her  spirit  was  as  sole 
in  that  melancholy  city  as  if  there  were  no  youth 
but  hers  in  the  world.  And  a  little  later  than  this, 
when  she  had  her  first  affair,  it  did  not  originate  in 


TONELLI' S   MARRIAGE.  229 

the  Piazza,  nor  at  all  respond  to  her  expectations 
in  a  love-affair.  In  fact,  it  was  altogether  a  business 
affair,  and  was  managed  chiefly  by  Tonelli,  who  hav- 
ing met  a  young  doctor,  laurelled  the  year  before  at 
Padua,  had  heard  him  express  so  pungent  a  curiosity 
to  know  what  the  Paronsina  would  have  to  her 
dower,  that  he  perceived  he  must  be  madly  in  love 
with  her.  So  with  the  consent  of  the  signora  he  had 
arranged  a  correspondence  between  the  young  people  ; 
and  all  went  on  well  at  first,  —  the  letters  from  both 
passing  through  his  hands.  But  his  office  was  any- 
thing but  a  sinecure,  for  while  the  Doctor  was  on  his 
part  of  a  cold  temperament,  and  disposed  to  regard 
the  affair  merely  as  a  proper  way  of  providing  for 
the  natural  affections,  the  Paronsina  cared  nothing  for 
him  personally,  and  only  viewed  him  favorably  as 
abstract  matrimony,  —  as  the  means  of  escaping  from 
the  bondage  of  her  girlhood  and  the  sad  seclusion  of 
her  life  into  the  world  outside  her  grandfather's 
house.  So  presently  the  correspondence  fell  almost 
wholly  upon  Tonelli,  who  worked  up  to  the  point  of 
betrothal  with  an  expense  of  finesse  and  sentiment 
that  would  have  made  his  fortune  in  diplomacy  or 
poetry.  What  should  he  say  now  ?  that  stupid  young 
Doctor  would  cry  in  a  desperation,  when  Tonelli  deli- 
cately reminded  him  that  it  was  time  to  answer  the 


230  TONELLl'S   MARK  I  AGE. 

Paronsina's  last  note.  Say  this,  that,  and  the  other, 
Tonelli  would  answer,  giving  him  the  heads  of  a 
proper  letter,  which  the  Doctor  took  down  on  square 
bits  of  paper,  neatly  fashioned  for  writing  prescrip- 
tions. "  And  for  God's  sake,  caro  dottore,  put  a  little 
warmth  into  it ! "  The  poor  Doctor  would  try,  but  it 
must  always  end  in  Tonelli's  suggesting  and  almost 
dictating  every  sentence ;  and  then  the  letter,  being 
carried  to  the  Paronsina  made  her  laugh  :  "  This  is 
very  pretty,  my  poor  Tonelli,  but  it  was  never  my 
onoratissimo  dottore  who  thought  of  these  tender  com- 
pliments. Ah !  that  allusion  to  my  mouth  and  eyes 
could  only  have  come  from  the  heart  of  a  great  poet. 
It  is  yours,  Tonelli,  don't  deny  it."  And  Tonelli, 
taken  in  his  weak  point  of  literature,  could  make  but 
a  feeble  pretence  of  disclaiming  the  child  of  his  fancy, 
while  the  Paronsina,  being  in  this  reckless  humor, 
more  than  once  responded  to  the  Doctor  in  such 
fashion  that  in  the  end  the  inspiration  of  her  altered 
and  amended  letter  was  Tonelli's.  Even  after  the 
betrothal,  the  lovemaking  languished,  and  the  Doctor 
was  indecently  patient  of  the  late  day  fixed  for  the 
marriage  by  the  notary.  In  fact,  the  Doctor  was  very 
busy;  and,  as  his  practice  grew,  the  dower  of  the 
Paronsina  dwindled  in  his  fancy,  till  one  day  he 
treated  the  whole  question  of  their  marriage  with 


TONELLl'S    MARRIAGE.  231 

such  coldness  and  uncertainty  in  his  talk  with  To- 
nelli,  that  the  latter  saw  whither  his  thoughts  were 
drifting,  and  went  home  with  an  indignant  heart  to 
the  Paronsina,  who  joyfully  sat  down  and  wrote  her 
first  sincere  letter  to  the  Doctor,  dismissing  him. 

"  It  is  finished,"  she  said,  "  and  I  am  glad.  After 
all,  perhaps,  I  don't  want  to  be  any  freer  than  I  am  ; 
and  while  I  have  you,  Tonelli,  I  don't  want  a  younger 
lover.  Younger  ?  Diana  !  You  are  in  the  flower  of 
youth,  and  I  believe  you  will  never  wither.  Did 
that  rogue  of  a  Doctor,  then,  really  give  you  the  elixir 
of  youth  for  writing  him  those  letters  ?  Tell  me, 
Tonelli,  as  a  true  friend,  how  long  have  you  been 
forty-seven  ?  Ever  since  your  fiftieth  birthday  ? 
Listen  !  I  have  been  more  afraid  of  losing  you  than 
my  sweetest  Doctor.  T  thought  you  would  be  so 
much  in  love  with  lovemaking  that  you  would  go 
break-neck  and  court  some  one  in  earnest  on  your 
own  account  ! " 

Thus  the  Paronsina  made  a  jest  of  the  loss  she  had 
sustained ;  but  it  was  not  pleasant  to  her,  except  as  it 
dissolved  a  tie  which  love  had  done  nothing  to  form. 
Her  life  seemed  colder  and  vaguer  after  it,  and  the 
hour  very  far  away  when  the  handsome  officers  of  her 
king  (all  good  Venetians  in  those  days  called  Victor 
Ernanuel  "our  king")  should  come  to  drive  out  tha 


232  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

Austrians,  and  marry  their  victims.  She  scarcely  en- 
joyed the  prodigious  privilege,  offered  her  at  this  time 
in  consideration  of  her  bereavement,  of  going  to  the 
comedy,  under  Tonelli's  protection  and  along  with 
Pennellini  and  his  sister,  while  the  poor  signora  after- 
wards had  real  qualms  of  patriotism  concerning  the 
breach  of  public  duty  involved  in  this  distraction  of 
her  daughter.  She  hoped  that  no  one  had  recognized 
her  at  the  theatre,  otherwise  they  might  have  a  warn- 
ing from  the  Venetian  Committee.  "  Thou  knowest," 
she  said  to  the  Paronsina,  "  that  they  have  even  ad- 
monished the  old  Conte  Tradonico,  who  loves  the 
comedy  better  than  his  soul,  and  who  used  to  go 
every  evening.  Thy  aunt  told  me,  and  that  the  old 
rogue,  when  people  ask  him  why  he  does  n't  go  to  the 
play,  answers,  '  My  mistress  won't  let  me.'  But  tie  ! 
I  am  saying  what  young  girls  ought  not  to  hear." 

After  the  affair  with  the  Doctor,  I  say,  life  refused 
to  return  exactly  to  its  old  expression,  and  I  suppose 
that,  if  what  presently  happened  was  ever  to  happen, 
it  could  not  have  occurred  at  a  more  appropriate  time 
for  a  disaster,  or  at  a  time  when  its  victims  were  less 
able  to  bear  it.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  have  yet 
sufficiently  indicated  the  fact,  but  the  truth  is  both 
the  Paronsina  and  her  mother  had  from  long  use  come 
to  regard  Tonelli  as  a  kind  of  property  of  theirs, 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  233 

which  had  no  right  in  any  way  to  alienate  itself. 
They  would  have  felt  an  attempt  of  this  sort  to  be 
not  only  very  absurd,  but  very  wicked,  in  view  of 
their  affection  for  him  and  dependence  upon  him; 
and  while  the  Paronsina  thanked  God  that  he  would 
never  marry,  she  had  a  deep  conviction  that  he  ought 
not  to  marry,  even  if  he  desired.  It  was  at  the 
same  time  perfectly  natural,  nay,  filial,  that  she  should 
herself  be  ready  to  desert  this  old  friend,  whom  she 
felt  so  strictly  bound  to  be  faithful  to  her  loneliness. 
As  matters  fell  out,  she  had  herself  primarily  to 
blame  for  Tonelli's  loss ;  for,  in  that  interval  of  disgust 
and  ennui  following  the  Doctor's  dismissal,  she  had 
suffered  him  to  seek  his  own  pleasure  on  holiday 
evenings ;  and  he  had  thus  wandered  alone  to  the 
Piazza,  and  so,  one  night,  had  seen  a  lady  eating  an 
ice  there,  and  fallen  in  love  without  more  ado  than 
another  man  should  drink  a  lemonade. 

This  facility  came  of  habit,  for  Tonelli  had  now 
been  falling  in  love  every  other  day  for  some  forty 
years ;  and  in  that  time  had  broken  the  hearts  of  in- 
numerable women  of  all  nations  and  classes.  The 
prettiest  water-carriers  in  his  neighborhood  were 
in  love  with  him,  as  their  mothers  had  been  before 
them,  and  ladies  of  noble  condition  were  believed 
to  cherish  passions  for  him.  Especially,  gay  and 


234  TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE. 

beautiful  foreigners,  as  they  sat  at  Florian's,  were 
taken  with  hopeless  love  of  him ;  and  he  could  tell 
stories  of  very  romantic  adventure  in  which  he 
figured  as  hero,  though  nearly  always  with  moral 
effect.  For  example,  there  was  the  countess  from  the 
mainland,  —  she  merited  the  sad  distinction  of  being 
chief  among  those  who  had  vainly  loved  him,  if  you 
could  believe  the  poet  who  both  inspired  and  sang 
her  passion.  When  she  took  a  palace  in  Venice,  he 
had  been  summoned  to  her  on  the  pretended  business 
of  a  secretary ;  but  when  she  presented  herself  with 
those  idle  accounts  of  her  factor  and  tenants  on  the 
mainland,  her  household  expenses  and  her  corre- 
spondence with  her  advocate,  Tonelli  perceived  at 
once  that  it  was  upon  a  wholly  different  affair  that 
she  had  desired  to  see  him.  She  was  a  rich  widow  of 
forty,  of  a  beauty  supernaturally  preserved  and  very 
great.  "  This  is  no  place  for  thee,  Tonelli  mine,"  the 
secretary  had  said  to  himself,  after  a  week  had  passed, 
and  he  had  understood  all  the  waywardness  of  that 
unhappy  lady's  intentions.  "  Thou  art  not  too  old,  but 
thou  art  too  wise,  for  these  follies,  though  no  saint "  ; 
and  so  had  gathered  up  his  personal  effects,  and 
secretly  quitted  the  palace.  But  such  was  the  count- 
ess's fury  at  his  escape  that  she  never  paid  him  his 
week's  salary ;  nor  did  she  manifest  the  least  gratitude 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  235 

that  Tonelli,  out  of  regard  for  her  son,  a  very  honest 
young  man,  refused  in  any  way  to  identify  her,  but, 
to  all  except  his  closest  friends,  pretended  that  he 
had  passed  those  terrible  eight  days  on  a  visit  to  the 
country  village  where  he  was  born.  It  showed  Pen- 
nellini's  ignorance  of  life  that  he  should  laugh  at  this 
history ;  and  I  prefer  to  treat  it  seriously,  and  to  use 
it  in  explaining  the  precipitation  with  which  Tonelli's 
latest  inamorata  returned  his  love. 

Though,  indeed,  why  should  a  lady  of  thirty,  and 
from  an  obscure  country  town,  hesitate  to  be  en- 
amored of  any  eligible  suitor  who  presented  himself 
in  Venice  ?  It  is  not  my  duty  to  enter  upon  a  detail 
or  summary  of  Carlotta's  character  or  condition,  or  to 
do  more  than  indicate  that,  while  she  did  not  greatly 
excel  in  youth,  good  looks,  or  worldly  gear,  she  had 
yet  a  little  property,  and  was  of  that  soft  prettiness 
which  is  often  more  effective  than  downright  beauty. 
There  was,  indeed,  something  very  charming  about 
her ;  and,  if  she  was  a  blonde,  I  have  no  reason  to 
think  she  was  as  fickle  as  the  Venetian  proverb 
paints  that  complexion  of  woman ;  or  that  she  had 
not  every  quality  which  would  have  excused  any  one 
but  Tonelli  for  thinking  of  marrying  her. 

After  their  first  mute  interview  in  the  Piazza,  the 
two  lost  no  time  in  making  each  other's  acquaintance  ; 


236  TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE. 

but  though  the  affair  was  vigorously  conducted,  no 
one  could  say  that  it  was  not  perfectly  in  order. 
Tonelli  on  the  following  day,  which  chanced  to  be 
Sunday,  repaired  to  St.  Mark's  at  the  hour  of  the 
fashionable  mass,  where  he  gazed  steadfastly  at  the 
lady  during  her  orisons,  and  whence,  at  a  discreet  dis- 
tance, he  followed  her  home  to  the  house  of  the 
friends  whom  she  was  visiting.  Somewhat  to  his 
discomfiture  at  first,  these  proved  to  be  old  acquain- 
tances of  his  ;  and  when  he  came  at  night  to  walk  up 
and  down  under  their  balconies,  as  bound  in  true  love 
to  do,  they  made  nothing  of  asking  him  indoors,  and 
presenting  him  to  his  lady.  But  the  pair  were  not  to 
be  entirely  balked  of  their  romance,  and  they  still 
arranged  stolen  interviews  at  church,  where  one 
furtively  whispered  word  had  the  value  of  whole 
hours  of  unrestricted  converse  under  the  roof  of  their 
friends.  They  quite  refused  to  take  advantage  of 
their  anomalously  easy  relations,  beyond  inquiry  on 
his  part  as  to  the  amount  of  the  lady's  dower,  and  on 
hers  as  to  the  permanence  of  Tonelli's  employment. 
He  in  due  form  had  Penriellini  to  his  confidant,  and 
Carlotta  unbosomed  herself  to  her  hostess ;  and  the 
affair  was  thus  conducted  with  such  secrecy  that  not 
more  than  two  thirds  of  Tonelli's  acquaintance  knew 
anything  about  it  when  their  engagement  was  an- 
nounced. 


TONELLl'S   MAKRIAGE.  237 

There  were  now  no  circumstances  to  prevent  their 
early  union,  yet  the  happy  conclusion  was  one  to 
which  Tonelli  urged  himself  after  many  secret  and 
bitter  displeasures  of  spirit.  I  am  persuaded  that 
his  love  for  Carlotta  must  have  been  most  ardent  and 
sincere,  for  there  was  everything  in  his  history  and 
reason  against  marriage.  He  could  not  disown  that 
he  had  hitherto  led  a  joyous  and  careless  life,  or  that 
he  was  exactly  fitted  for  the  modest  delights,  the  dis- 
creet variety,  of  his  present  state,  —  for  his  daily 
routine  at  the  notary's,  his  dinner  at  the  Bronze 
Horses  or  the  cook-shop,  his  hour  at  the  caffe,  his 
walks  and  excursions,  for  his  holiday  banquet  with 
the  Cenarotti,  and  his  formal  promenade  with  the 
ladies  of  that  family  upon  the  Molo.  He  had  a  good 
employment,  with  a  salary  that  held  him  above  want, 
and  afforded  him  the  small  luxuries  already  named ; 
and  he  had  fixed  habits  of  work  and  of  relaxation, 
which  made  both  a  blessing.  He  had  his  chosen 
circle  of  intimate  equals,  who  regarded  him  for  his 
good-heartedness  and  wit  and  foibles  ;  and  his  little 
following  of  humble  admirers,  who  looked  upon  him 
as  a  gifted  man  in  disgrace  with  fortune.  His  friend- 
ships were  as  old  as  they  were  secure  and  cordial ;  he 
was  established  in  the  kindliness  of  all  who  knew 
him  ;  and  he  was  flattered  by  the  dependence  of  the 


238  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

Paronsina  and  her  mother,  even  when  it  was  trouble- 
some to  him.  He  had  his  past  of  sentiment  and  war, 
his  present  of  story-telling  and  romance.  He  was 
quite  independent :  his  sins,  if  he  had  any,  began  and 
ended  in  himself,  for  none  was  united  to  him  so  closely 
as  to  be  hurt  by  them  ;  and  he  was  far  too  imprudent 
a  man  to  be  taken  for  an  example  by  any  one.  He 
came  and  went  as  he  listed,  he  did  this  or  that  with- 
out question.  With  no  heart  chosen  yet  from  the 
world  of  woman's  love,  he  was  still  a  young  man,  with 
hopes  and  affections  as  pliable  as  a  boy's.  He  had, 
in  a  word,  that  reputation  of  good-fellow  which  in 
Venice  gives  a  man  the  title  of  buon  diavolo,  but  on 
which  he  does  not  anywhere  turn  his  back  with  im- 
punity, either  from  his  own  consciousness  or  from 
public  opinion.  There  never  was  such  a  thing  in  the 
world  as  both  good  devil  and  good  husband  ;  and  even 
with  his  betrothal  Tonelli  felt  that  his  old,  careless, 
merry  life  of  the  hour  ended,  and  that  he  had  tacitly 
recognized  a  future  while  he  was  yet  unable  to  cut 
the  past.  If  one  has  for  twenty  years  made  a  jest  of 
women,  however  amiably  and  insincerely,  one  does 
not  propose  to  marry  a  woman  without  making  a  jest 
of  one's  self.  The  avenging  remembrance  of  elderly 
people  whose  late  matrimony  had  furnished  food  for 
Tonelli's  wit  now  rose  up  to  torment  him,  and  in  his 


TONELLI'S    MARRIAGE.  239 

morbid  fancy  the  merriment  he  had  caused  was  echoed 
back  in  his  own  derision. 

It  shocked  him  to  find  how  quickly  his  secret  took 
wing,  and  it  annoyed  him  that  all  his  acquaintances 
were  so  prompt  to  felicitate  him.  He  imagined  a 
latent  mockery  in  their  speeches,  and  lie  took  them 
with  an  argumentative  solemnity.  He  reasoned  sepa- 
rately with  his  friends ;  to  all  who  spoke  to  him  of 
his  marriage  he  presented  elaborate  proofs  that  it  was 
the  wisest  thing  he  could  possibly  do,  and  tried  to 
give  the  affair  a  cold  air  of  prudence.  "  You  see,  I 
r,m  getting  old ;  that  is  to  say,  I  am  tired  of  this 
bachelor  life  in  which  I  have  no  one  to  take  care  of 
me,  if  I  fall  sick,  and  to  watch  that  the  doctors  do 
not  put  me  to  death.  My  pay  is  very  little,  but, 
with  Carlotta's  dower  well  invested,  we  shall  both 
together  live  better  than  either  of  us  lives  alone.  She 
is  a  careful  woman,  and  will  keep  me  neat  and  com- 
fortable. She  is  not  so  young  as  some  women  I  had 
thought  to  marry,  —  no,  but  so  much  the  better ;  no- 
body will  think  her  half  so  charming  as  I  do,  and  at 
my  time  of  life  that  is  a  great  point  gained.  She  is 
good,  and  has  an  admirable  disposition.  She  is  not 
spoiled  by  Venice,  but  as  innocent  as  a  dove.  0,  I 
shall  find  myself  very  well  with  her  ! " 

This  was  the  speech  which  with  slight  modification 


240  TOXELLl'S    MARRIAGE. 

Tonelli  made  over  and  over  again  to  all  his  friends 
but  Pennellini.  To  him  he  unmasked,  and  said 
boldly  that  at  last  he  was  really  in  love  ;  and  being 
gently  discouraged  in  what  seemed  his  folly,  and  in- 
credulously laughed  at,  he  grew  angry,  and  gave  such 
proofs  of  his  sincerity  that  Pennellini  was  convinced, 
and  owned  to  himself,  "  This  madman  is  actually  en- 
amored,—  enamored  like  a  cat!  Patience!  What 
will  ever  those  Cenarotti  say  ?" 

In  a  little  while  poor  Tonelli  lost  the  philosophic 
mind  with  which  he  had  at  first  received  the  congrat- 
ulations of  his  friends,  and,  from  reasoning  with 
them,  fell  to  resenting  their  good  wishes.  Very  little 
things  irritated  him,  and  pleasantries  which  he  had 
taken  in  excellent  part,  time  out  of  mind,  now  raised 
his  anger.  His  barber  had  for  many  years  been  in 
the  habit  of  saying,  as  he  applied  the  stick  of  fixature 
to  Tonelli's  mustache,  and  gave  it  a  jaunty  upward 
curl,  "  Now  we  will  bestow  that  little  dash  of  youth- 
fulness  " ;  and  it  both  amazed  and  hurt  him  to  have 
Tonelli  respond  with  a  fierce  "  Tsit ! "  and  say  that 
this  jest  was  proper  in  its  antiquity  to  the  times  of 
Romulus  rather  than  our  own  period,  and  so  go  out  of 
the  shop  without  that  "  Adieu,  old  fellow,"  which  he 
had  never  failed  to  give  in  twenty  years.  "Cap- 
peri  ! "  said  the  barber,  when  he  emerged  from  a  pro- 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  241 

found  revery  into  which  this  outbreak  had  plunged 
him,  and  in  which  he  had  remained  holding  the  nose 
of  his  next  customer,  and  tweaking  it  to  and  fro  in 
the  violence  of  his  emotions,  regardless  of  those 
mumbled  maledictions  which  the  lather  would  not 
permit  the  victim  to  articulate.  "  If  Tonelli  is  so  sav- 
age in  his  betrothal,  we  must  wait  for  his  marriage  to 
tame  him.  I  am  sorry.  He  was  always  such  a  good 
devil." 

But  if  many  things  annoyed  Tonelli,  there  were 
some  that  deeply  wounded  him,  and  chiefly  the  fact 
that  his  betrothal  seemed  to  have  fixed  an  impassable 
gulf  of  years  between  him  and  all  those  young  men 
whose  company  he  loved  so  well.  He  had  really  a 
boy's  heart,  and  lie  had  consorted  with  them  be- 
cause he  felt  himself  nearer  their  age  than  his  own. 
Hitherto  they  had  in  no  wise  found  his  presence  a 
restraint.  They  had  always  laughed,  and  told  their 
loves,  and  spoken  their  young  men's  thoughts,  and 
made  their  young  men's  jokes,  without  fear  or  shame, 
before  the  merry-hearted  sage,  who  never  offered  good 
advice,  if  indeed  he  ever  dreamed  that  there  was  a 
wiser  philosophy  than  theirs.  It  had  been  as  if  he 
were  the  youngest  among  them  ;  but  now,  in  spite  of 
all  that  he  or  they  could  do,  he  seemed  suddenly  and 
irretrievably  aged.  They  looked  at  him  strangely,  as  if 

13 


242  TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE. 

for  the  first  time  they  saw  that  his  mustache  was  gray, 
that  his  brow  was  not  smooth  like  theirs,  that  there 
were  crow's-feet  at  the  corners  of  his  kindly  eyes. 
They  could  not  phrase  the  vague  feeling  that  haunted 
their  hearts,  or  they  would  have  said  that  Tonelli,  in 
offering  to  marry,  had  voluntarily  turned  his  back  upon 
his  youth  ;  that  love,  which  would  only  have  brought 
a  richer  bloom  to  their  age,  had  breathed  away  for- 
ever the  autumnal  blossom  of  his. 

Something  of  this  made  itself  felt  in  Tonelli's  own 
consciousness,  whenever  he  met  them,  and  he  soon 
grew  to  avoid  these  comrades  of  his  youth.  It  was 
therefore  after  a  purely  accidental  encounter  with  one 
of  them,  and  as  he  was  passing  into  the  Campo  Sant' 
Angelo,  head  down,  and  supporting  himself  with  an 
inexplicable  sense  of  infirmity  upon  the  cane  he  was 
wont  so  jauntily  to  flourish,  that  he  heard  himself  ad- 
dressed with,  "  I  say,  master ! "  He  looked  up,  and 
beheld  the  fat  madman  who  patrols  that  campo,  and 
who  has  the  license  of  his  affliction  to  utter  insolences 
to  whomsoever  he  will,  leaning  against  the  door  of  a 
tobacconist's  shop,  with  his  arms  folded,  and  a  lazy, 
mischievous  smile  loitering  down  on  his  greasy  face. 
As  he  caught  Tonelli's  eye  he  nodded,  "  Eh  !  I  have 
heard,  master " ;  while  the  idlers  of  that  neighbor- 
hood, who  relished  and  repeated  his  incoherent 


TONELLl's  MARRIAGE.  243 

pleasantries  like  the  mots  of  some  great  diner-out, 
gathered  near  with  expectant  grins.  Had  Tonelli 
been  altogether  himself,  as  in  other  days,  he  would 
have  been  far  too  wise  to  answer,  "  What  hast  thou 
heard,  poor  animal  ?  " 

"That  you  are  going  to  take  a  mate  when  most 
birds  think  of  flying  away,"  said  the  madman.  "  Be- 
cause it  has  been  summer  a  long  time  with  you,  mas- 
ter, you  think  it  will  never  be  winter.  Look  out : 
the  wolf  does  n't  eat  the  season." 

The  poor  fool  in  these  words  seemed  to  utter  a 
public  voice  of  disapprobation  and  derision ;  and  as 
the  pitiless  bystanders,  who  had  many  a  time  laughed 
with  Tonelli,  now  laughed  at  him,  joining  in  the  ap- 
plause which  the  madman  himself  led  off,  the  miser- 
able good  devil  walked  away  with  a  shiver,  as  if  the 
weather  had  actually  turned  cold.  It  was  not  till  he 
found  himself  in  Carlotta's  presence  that  the  long 
summer  appeared  to  return  to  him.  Indeed,  in  her 
tenderness  and  his  real  love  for  her  he  won  back  all 
his  youth  again;  and  he  found  it  of  a  truer  and 
sweeter  quality  than  he  had  known  even  when  his 
years  were  few,  while  the  gay  old-bachelor  life  he 
had  long  led  seemed  to  him  a  period  of  miserable 
loneliness  and  decrepitude.  Mirrored  in  her  fond 
eyes,  he  saw  himself  alert  and  handsome  ;  and,  since 


244  TONELLl'S   MAERIAGE. 

for  the  time  being  they  were  to  each  other  all  the 
world,  we  may  be  sure  there  was  nothing  in  the  world 
then  to  vex  or  shame  Tonelli.  The  promises  of  the 
future,  too,  seemed  not  improbable  of  fulfilment,  for 
they  were  not  extravagant  promises.  These  people's 
castle  in  the  air  was  a  house  furnished  from  Car- 
lotta's  modest  portion,  and  situated  in  a  quarter  of 
the  city  not  too  far  from  the  Piazza,  and  convenient 
to  a  decent  caffe,  from  which  they  could  order  a 
lemonade  or  a  cup  of  coffee  for  visitors.  Tonelli's 
stipend  was  to  pay  the  housekeeping,  as  well  as  the 
minute  wage  of  a  servant-girl  from  the  country ;  and 
it  was  believed  that  they  could  save  enough  from 
that,  and  a  little  of  Carlotta's  money  at  interest,  to 
go  sometimes  to  the  Malibran  theatre  or  the  Marion- 
ette, or  even  make  an  excursion  to  the  mainland 
upon  a  holiday;  but  if  they  could  not,  it  was  cer- 
tainly better  Italianism  to  stay  at  home ;  and  at  least 
they  could  always  walk  to  the  Public  Gardens.  At 
one  time,  religious  differences  threatened  to  cloud  this 
blissful  vision  of  the  future ;  but  it  was  finally  agreed 
that  Carlotta  should  go  to  mass  and  confession  as 
often  as  she  liked,  and  should  not  tease  Tonelli  about 
his  .soul ;  while  he,  on  his  part,  was  not  to  speak  ill 
of  the  pope  except  as  a  temporal  prince,  or  of  any  of 
the  priesthood  except  of  the  Jesuits  when  in  com- 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  245 

pany,  in  order  to  show  that  marriage  had  not  made 
him  a  codino.  For  the  like  reason,  no  change  was  to 
be  made  in  his  custom  of  praising  Garibaldi  and  revil- 
ing the  accursed  Germans  upon  all  safe  occasions. 

As  Tonelli  had  nothing  in  the  world  but  his  salary 
and  his  slender  wardrobe,  Carlotta  eagerly  accepted 
the  idea  of  a  loss  of  family  property  during  the  revo- 
lution. Of  Tonelli's  scar  she  was  as  proud  as  Tonelli 
himself. 

When  she  came  to  speak  of  the  acquaintance  of  all 
those  young  men,  it  seemed  again  like  a  breath  from 
the  north  to  her  betrothed ;  and  he  answered,  with  a 
sigh,  that  this  was  an  affair  that  had  already  finished 
itself.  "  I  have  long  thought  them  too  boyish  for 
me,"  he  said,  "and  I  shall  keep  none  of  them  but 
Pennellini,  who  is  even  older  than  I,  —  who,  I  be- 
lieve, was  never  born,  but  created  middle-aged  out  of 
the  dust  of  the  earth,  like  Adam.  He  is  not  a  good 
devil,  but  he  has  every  good  quality." 

While  he  thus  praised  his  friend,  Tonelli  was  medi- 
tating a  service,  which  when  he  asked  it  of  Pennellini, 
had  almost  the  effect  to  destroy  their  ancient  amity. 
This  was  no  less  than  the  composition  of  those 
wedding-verses,  without  which,  printed  and  exposed 
to  view  in  all  the  shop-windows,  no  one  in  Venice 
feels  himself  adequately  and  truly  married.  Permel- 


246  TONELLI'S  MAREIAGE. 

lini  had  never  willingly  made  a  verse  in  his  life ;  and 
it  was  long  before  he  understood  Tonelli,  when  he 
urged  the  delicate  request.  Then  in  vain  he  pro- 
tested, recalcitrated.  It  was  all  an  offence  to  To- 
nelli's  morbid  soul,  already  irritated  by  his  friend's 
obtuseness,  and  eager  to  turn  even  the  reluctance  of 
nature  into  insult.  He  took  his  refusal  for  a  sign 
that  he,  too,  deserted  him ;  and  must  be  called  back, 
after  bidding  Pennellini  adieu,  to  hear  the  only 
condition  on  which  the  accursed  sonnet  would  be 
furnished,  namely,  that  it  should  not  be  signed  Pen- 
nellini, but  An  Affectionate  Friend.  Never  was  sonnet 
cost  poet  so  great  anguish  as  this  :  Pennellini  went  at 
it  conscientiously  as  if  it  were  a  problem  in  math- 
ematics; he  refreshed  his  prosody,  he  turned  over 
Carrer,  he  toiled  a  whole  night,  and  in  due  time 
appeared  as  Tonelli's  affectionate  friend  in  all  the 
butchers'  and  bakers'  windows.  But  it  had  been  too 
much  to  ask  of  him,  and  for  a  while  he  felt  the  shock 
of  Tonelli's  unreason  and  excess  so  much  that  there 
was  a  decided  coolness  between  them. 

This  important  particular  arranged,  little  remained 
for  Tonelli  to  do  but  to  come  to  that  open  under- 
standing with  the  Paronsina  and  her  mother  which 
he  had  long  dreaded  and  avoided.  He  could  not  con- 
ceal from  himself  that  his  marriage  was  a  kind  of  de- 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  247 

sertion  of  the  two  dear  friends  so  dependent  upon 
his  singleness,  and  he  considered  the  case  of  the 
Paronsina  with  a  real  remorse.  If  his  meditated  act 
sometimes  appeared  to  him  a  gross  inconsistency  and 
a  satire  upon  all  his  former  life,  he  had  still  consoled 
himself  with  the  truth  of  his  passion,  and  had  found 
love  its  own  apology  and  comfort ;  but  in  its  relation 
to  these  lonely  women,  his  love  itself  had  no  fairer 
aspect  than  that  of  treason,  and  he  shrank  from  own- 
ing it  before  them  with  a  sense  of  guilt.  Some  wild 
dreams  of  reconciling  his  future  with  his  past  occa- 
sionally haunted  him  ;  but  in  his  saner  moments,  he 
perceived  their  folly.  Carlotta,  he  knew,  was  good 
and  patient,  but  she  was  nevertheless  a  woman,  and 
she  would  never  consent  that  he  should  be  to  the 
Cenarotti  all  that  he  had  been ;  these  ladies  also 
were  very  kind  and  reasonable,  but  they  too  were 
women,  and  incapable  of  accepting  a  less  perfect  de- 
votion. Indeed,  was  not  his  proposed  marriage  too 
much  like  taking  her  only  son  from  the  signora  and 
giving  the  Paronsina  a  stepmother  ?  It  was  worse, 
and  so  the  ladies  of  the  notary's  family  viewed  it, 
cherishing  a  resentment  that  grew  with  Tonelli's  de- 
lay to  deal  frankly  with  them ;  while  Carlotta,  on 
her  part,  was  wounded  that  these  old  friends  should 
ignore  his  future  wife  so  utterly.  On  both  sides 
evil  was  stored  up. 


248  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

When  Tonelli  would  still  make  a  show  of  fidelity 
to  the  Paronsina  and  her  mother,  they  accepted  his 
awkward  advances,  the  latter  with  a  cold  visage,  the 
former  with  a  sarcastic  face  and  tongue.  He  had 
managed  particularly  ill  with  the  Paronsina,  who, 
having  no  romance  of  her  own,  would  possibly  have 
come  to  enjoy  the  autumnal  poetry  of  his  love  if  he 
had  permitted.  But  when  she  first  approached  him 
on  the  subject  of  those  rumors  she  had  heard,  and 
treated  them  with  a  natural  derision,  as  involving  the 
most  absurd  and  preposterous  ideas,  he,  instead  of 
suffering  her  jests,  and  then  turning  her  interest  to 
his  favor,  resented  them,  and  closed  his  heart  and 
its  secret  against  her.  What  could  she  do,  thereafter, 
but  feign  to  avoid  the  subject,  and  adroitly  touch  it 
with  constant,  invisible  stings  ?  Alas !  it  did  not 
need  that  she  should  ever  speak  to  Tonelli  with  the 
wicked  intent  she  did;  at  this  time  he  would  have 
taken  ill  whatever  most  innocent  thing  she  said. 
When  friends  are  to  be  estranged,  they  do  not  require 
a  cause.  They  have  but  to  doubt  one  another,  and 
no  forced  forbearance  or  kindness  between  them  can 
do  aught  but  confirm  their  alienation.  This  is  on  the 
whole  fortunate,  for  in  this  manner  neither  feels  to 
blame  for  the  broken  friendship,  and  each  can  declare 
with  perfect  truth  that  he  did  all  he  could  to  main- 


TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE.  249 

tain  it.  Tonelli  said  to  himself,  "If  the  Paronsina 
had  treated  the  affair  properly  at  first ! "  arid  the  Pa- 
ronsina thought,  "  If  he  had  told  me  frankly  about  it 
to  begin  with ! "  Both  had  a  latent  heartache  over 
their  trouble,  and  both  a  sense  of  loss  the  more  bitter 
because  it  was  of  loss  still  unacknowledged. 

As  the  day  fixed  for  Tonelli's  wedding  drew  near, 
the  rumor  of  it  came  to  the  Cenarotti  from  all  their 
acquaintance.  But  when  people  spoke  to  them  of  it, 
as  of  something  they  must  be  fully  and  particularly 
informed  of,  the  signora  answered  coldly,  "  It  seems 
that  we  have  not  merited  Tonelli's  confidence  "  ;  and 
the  Paronsina  received  the  gossip  with  an  air  of 
clearly  affected  surprise,  and  a  "  Davoero!"  that  at 
least  discomfited  the  tale-bearers. 

The  consciousness  of  the  unworthy  part  he  was 
acting  toward  these  ladies  had  come  at  last  to  poison 
the  pleasure  of  Tonelli's  wooing,  even  in  Carlotta's 
presence ;  yet  I  suppose  he  would  still  have  let  his 
wedding-day  come  and  go,  and  been  married  beyond 
hope  of  atonement,  so  loath  was  he  to  inflict  upon 
himself  and  them  the  pain  of  an  explanation,  if  one 
day,  within  a  week  of  that  time,  the  notary  had  not 
bade  his  clerk  dine  with  him  on  the  morrow.  It  was 
a  holiday,  and  as  Carlotta  was  at  home,  making  ready 
for  the  marriage,  Tonelli  consented  to  take  his  place 


250  TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE. 

at  the  table  from  which  he  had  been  a  long  time 
absent.  But  it  turned  out  such  a  frigid  and  melan- 
choly banquet  as  never  was  known  before.  The  old 
notary,  to  whom  all  things  came  dimly,  finally  missed 
the  accustomed  warmth  of  Tonelli's  fun,  and  said, 
with  a  little  shiver,  "  Why,  what  ails  you,  Tonelli  ? 
You  are  as  moody  as  a  man  in  love." 

The  notary  had  been  told  several  times  of  Tonelli's 
affair,  but  it  was  his  characteristic  not  to  remember 
any  gossip  later  than  that  of  'Forty- eight. 

The  Paronsina  burst  into  a  laugh  full  of  the  cruelty 
and  insult  of  a  woman's  long-smothered  sense  of  in- 
jury. "  Caro  nonno,"  she  screamed  into  her  grand- 
father's dull  ear,  "he  is  really  in  despair  how  to 
support  his  happiness.  He  is  shy,  even  of  his  old 
friends,  —  he  has  had  so  little  experience.  It  is  the 
first  love  of  a  young  man.  Bisogna  compatire  la 
gioventu,  caro  nonno."  And  her  tongue  being  finally 
loosed,  the  Paronsina  broke  into  incoherent  mockeries, 
that  hurt  more  from  their  purpose  than  their  point, 
and  gave  no  one  greater  pain  than  herself. 

Tonelli  sat  sad  and  perfectly  mute  under  the  inflic- 
tion, but  he  said  in  his  heart,  "  I  have  merited  worse." 

At  first  the  signora  remained  quite  aghast;  but 
when  she  collected  herself,  she  called  out  peremp- 
torily, "  Madamigella,  you  push  the  affair  a  little 
beyond.  Cease  ! " 


TONELLl'S   MARRIAGE.  251 

The  Paronsina,  having  said  all  she  desired,  ceased, 
panting. 

The  old  notary,  for  whose  slow  sense  all  but  her 
first  words  had  been  too  quick,  though  all  had  been 
spoken  at  him,  said  dryly,  turning  to  Tonelli,  "  I  im- 
agine that  my  deafness  is  not  always  a  misfortune." 

It  was  by  an  inexplicable,  but  hardly  less  inevita- 
ble, violence  to  the  inclinations  of  each  that,  after 
this  miserable  dinner,  the  signora,  the  Paronsina,  and 
Tonelli  should  go  forth  together  for  their  wonted 
promenade  on  the  Molo.  Use,  which  is  the  second, 
is  also  very  often  the  stronger  nature,  and  so  these 
parted  friends  made  a  last  show  of  union  and  har- 
mony. In  nothing  had  their  amity  been  more  fa- 
tally broken  than  in  this  careful  homage  to  its  forms ; 
and  now,  as  they  walked  up  and  down  in  the  moon- 
light, they  were  of  the  saddest  kind  of  apparitions,  — 
not  mere  disembodied  spirits,  which,  however,  are 
bad  enough,  but  disanimated  bodies,  which  are  far 
worse,  and  of  which  people  are  not  more  afraid  only 
because  they  go  about  in  society  so  commonly.  As 
on  many  and  many  another  night  of  summers  past, 
the  moon  came  up  and  stood  over  the  Lido,  striking 
far  across  the  glittering  lagoon,  and  everywhere  win- 
ning the  flattered  eye  to  the  dark  masses  of  shadow 
upon  the  water ;  to  the  trees  of  the  Gardens,  to  the 


252  TONELLI'S   MARRIAGE. 

trees  and  towers  and  domes  of  the  cloistered  and 
templed  isles.  Scene  of  pensive  and  incomparable 
loveliness !  giving  even  to  the  stranger,  in  some  faint 
and  most  unequal  fashion,  a  sense  of  the  awful  mean- 
ing of  exile  to  the  Venetian,  who  in  all  other  lands 
in  the  world  is  doubly  an  alien,  from  their  unuttera- 
ble unlikeness  to  his  sole  and  beautiful  city.  The 
prospect  had  that  pathetic  unreality  to  the  friends 
which  natural  things  always  assume  to  people  play- 
ing a  part,  and  I  imagine  that  they  saw  it  not  more 
substantial  than  it  appears  to  the  exile  in  his  dreams. 
In  their  promenade  they  met  again  and  again  the 
unknown,  wonted  faces;  they  even  encountered  some 
acquaintances,  whom  they  greeted,  and  with  whom 
they  chatted  for  a  while;  and  when  at  nine  the 
bronze  giants  beat  the  hour  upon  their  bell,  —  with 
as  remote  effect  as  if  they  were  giants  of  the  times 
before  the  flood,  —  they  were  aware  of  Pennellini, 
promptly  appearing  like  an  exact  and  methodical 
spectre. 

But  to-night  the  Paronsina,  who  had  made  the 
scene  no  compliments,  did  not  insist  as  usual  upon 
the  ice  at  Florian's ;  and  Pennellini  took  his  formal 
leave  of  the  friends  under  the  arch  of  the  Clock 
Tower,  and  they  walked  silently  homeward  through 
the  echoing  Merceria. 


TONELLl'S  MARRIAGE.  253 

At  the  notary's  gate  Tonelli  would  have  said  good- 
night, but  the  signora  made  him  enter  with  them, 
and  then  abruptly  left  him  standing  with  the  Paron- 
sina  in  the  gallery,  while  she  was  heard  hurrying  away 
to  her  own  apartment.  She  reappeared,  extending 
toward  Tonelli  both  hands,  upon  which  glittered  and 
glittered  manifold  skeins  of  the  delicate  chain  of 
Venice. 

She  had  a  very  stately  and  impressive  bearing,  as 
she  stood  there  in  the  moonlight,  and  addressed  him 
with  a  collected  voice.  "  Tonelli,"  she  said,  "  I  think 
you  have  treated  your  oldest  and  best  friends  very 
cruelly.  Was  it  not  enough  that,  you  should  take 
yourself  from  us,  but  you  must  also  forbid  our  hearts 
to  follow  you  even  in  sympathy  and  good  wishes  ?  I 
had  almost  thought  to  say  adieu  forever  to-night ; 
but,"  she  continued,  with  a  breaking  utterance,  and 
passing  tenderly  to  the  familiar  form  of  address,  "I 
cannot  part  so  with  thee.  Thou  hast  been  too  like  a 
son  to  me,  too  like  a  brother  to  my  poor  Clarice. 
Maybe  thou  no  longer  lovest  us,  yet  I  think  thou 
wilt  not  disdain  this  gift  for  thy  wife.  Take  it,  To- 
nelli, if  not  for  our  sake,  perhaps  then  for  the  sake 
of  sorrows  that  in  times  past  we  have  shared  together 
in  this  unhappy  Venice." 

Here  the  signora  ended  perforce  the  speech,  which 


254  TONELLl'S  MARRIAGE. 

had  been  long  for  her,  and  the  Paronsina  burst  into 
a  passion  of  weeping,  —  not  more  at  her  mamma's 
words  than  out  of  self-pity  and  from  the  national 
sensibility. 

Tonelli  took  the  chain,  and  reverently  kissed  it 
and  the  hands  that  gave  it.  He  had  a  helpless  sense 
of  the  injustice  the  signora's  words  and  the  Paron- 
sina's  tears  did  him;  he  knew  that  they  put  him 
with  feminine  excess  further  in  the  wrong  than  even 
his  own  weakness  had ;  but  he  tried  to  express  noth- 
ing of  this,  —  it  was  but  part  of  the  miserable  maze 
in  which  his  life  was  involved.  With  what  courage 
he  might  he  owned  his  error,  but  protested  his  faith- 
ful friendship,  and  poured  out  all  his  troubles,  —  his 
love  for  Carlotta,  his  regret  for  them,  his  shame  and 
remorse  for  himself.  They  forgave  him,  and  there 
was  everything  in  their  words  and  will  to  restore 
their  old  friendship,  and  keep  it ;  arid  when  the  gate 
with  a  loud  clang  closed  upon  Tonelli,  going  from 
them,  they  all  felt  that  it  had  irrevocably  perished. 

I  do  not  say  that  there  was  not  always  a  decent 
and  affectionate  bearing  on  the  part  of  the  Paronsiua 
and  her  mother  towards  Tonelli  and  his  wife ;  I 
acknowledge  that  it  was  but  too  careful  and  faultless 
a  tenderness,  ever  conscious  of  its  own  fragility.  Far 
more  natural  was  the  satisfaction  they  took  in  the 


TONELLI'S  MARRIAGE.  255 

delayed  fruitfulness  of  Tonelli's  marriage,  and  then 
in  the  fact  that  his  child  was  a  girl,  and  not  a  boy. 
It  was  but  human  that  they  should  doubt  his  happi- 
ness, and  that  the  signora  should  always  say,  when 
hard  pressed  with  questions  upon  the  matter :  "  Yes, 
Tonelli  is  married ;  but  if  it  were  to  do  again,  I  think 
he  would  do  it  to-morrow  rather  than  to-day." 


THE  END. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


DEC  22  76 

JAN  1 7  REC'D 


3  2106  00207  2657 


